Late Nights
by seeleybooths
Summary: They say once is an accident. Twice is a coincidence. How many times can Booth and Brennan fall asleep at each other's apartments before it becomes more than just a habit? Set in season five.
1. Power Outage

**Thank you so much for all the positive reviews on my first fic. It made me so very happy. Without further ado, here's another story of mine.**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own Bones.**

* * *

There was a knock at his door.

Booth walked across the room and opened the door, coming face to face with a dripping wet Brennan. Raindrops from the raging storm snaked down her face as her drenched clothes clung to her skin.

" _Bones_? What are you doing outside? Didn't you hear the weather reports? This is supposed to be the worst thunderstorm of the _entire year_." Booth said, slightly annoyed, slightly worried. He beckoned his sopping wet partner inside.

"Reporting the weather is nothing more than guessing. It was sunny earlier so I decided to take a run. But when it started thundering, I realized I was closer to your apartment and thought it was probably safer to stop by. You don't mind, do you?" Brennan asked with a slight shiver.

"Did you really think I would mind? We haven't been partners for five years for nothing." Booth smiled before turning towards his bedroom. "Come on, you should get out of those clothes. You'll catch a cold."

"Actually, you're more likely to catch a cold if the person infected sneezes or coughs on you." Brennan called out as Booth reappeared with a ragged FBI shirt and a pair of grey sweatpants.

He handed her the clothing. "These are the smallest clothes I own. I hope they're okay."

Brennan softly smiled. "Thanks, Booth."

She disappeared into the bathroom to get changed as Booth dropped back onto his couch, refocusing his attention on a random movie that was playing on TV. When he imagined Brennan wearing his clothes, he never pictured it like this. But he wasn't going to complain. More than anything, she was his best friend and an evening spent with his best friend was an evening well spent.

His bathroom door cracked open, breaking Booth's attention as Brennan's stepped out, suddenly looking much smaller in his clothes. He would call her beautiful, but he knew she would object.

 _Clothes that don't fit aren't beautiful_ , she would say. _This shirt is way too big, and I can barely keep these sweatpants up._

Her wet hair was a darkened chestnut, slightly rumpled from the rain. Somehow her eyes were even bluer like they soaked up the droplets and made a lake. She wore a tired smile that only turned up the corners of her mouth, but Booth still saw it. She padded over towards where he was sitting and sat next to him. Not exactly curled into him but not too far away.

She smelled like spring and storms, flowers and cold rain, clean laundry and _her_. He could never figure out that scent, but he knew it was his favorite. She smiled a little bit wider when she saw that he was still looking at her, chocolate eyes meeting cobalt ones. He loved that smile too.

So beautiful.

The outside was a fit of chaos in comparison to the warm murmur of the indoors. The two partners enjoyed each other's company, making small talk about the movie and wandering thoughts. It had been a quiet week. No murders. No going into the field. Less of being together. Lots of being lonely. Booth wondered if Brennan missed him during weeks like these. He missed her. He always missed her.

But for now, he didn't have to miss her. Warmth radiated from the shirt she was wearing and a comforting brightness lived in her eyes like stars in the sky. For now, she wasn't Dr. Temperance Brennan from the Jeffersonian. She was his Bones. Kind, soft, caring. He wondered how many other people knew of this person.

He secretly hoped he was the only one.

And then the lights started flickering. The noise from the television stopped. Black. Black. Black. The power was gone in an instant, the thunder outside growing from rumbling to booming.

Booth pretended he didn't notice Brennan move closer to him, her fingers grazing his shirt and her head meeting his shoulder.

"Now do you trust the weathermen?" Booth laughed, catching Brennan's half-hearted glare.

Brennan rose from where she was seated, much to Booth's dismay. "Do you have any candles? It doesn't look like the storm is calming down anytime soon."

"Yeah. You stay put." Booth said, motioning to the couch. "I'll take care of it."

"Booth, I am more than capable of—"

"Bones, just think of it as me being the host and you being the guest. Let me take care of you." The words left his lips before he could do anything about it. He momentarily froze, but Brennan stayed quiet and sat back down the couch, slipping a nearby blanket around her body.

Booth dug through his kitchen, soon finding a few candles along with a box of matches. He struck a match and lit the candles, placing them on the coffee table in front of the couch. The flickering flames didn't bring much light beyond framing Brennan's face, yellow glows meeting pale skin. Booth had never seen Brennan so cozy before. It was a sight he wouldn't mind coming home to everyday.

Someday.

Maybe.

Hopefully.

Surely.

Someday.

Booth slid back down onto the couch, his teeth barely catching his tongue as Brennan curled up next to him, her arm tucked against his side and her head resting against his chest.

"'S cold," Brennan muttered.

"Do you want a sweatshirt? They won't fit, but I do have plenty." Booth offered, although he wished he didn't. This was… nice. More than nice.

"No," she breathed out, "you're warm enough."

"Just call me a human furnace," he joked, his arm falling around her shoulders.

"If I was lying on a furnace, I would get burned." Brennan retorted. She would never let a joke slide by.

"I know I'm hot, but I hope I'm not that hot." He smirked.

Brennan laughed at that. It was like music to Booth's ears. He liked making her laugh even more than he liked making her smile.

"How long do you think the storm is going to last?" Brennan asked after several seconds of silence.

"All throughout the night." He paused. "You should probably stay here. I don't want you going out into that storm."

He knew she didn't like it when he went into overprotective, alpha male mode, but he didn't care. She was his partner. To him, partners lived to protect each other. To die for each other.

But he never accounted for loving the other.

To his surprise, she didn't fight it. "You're right. That would be unsafe. I'll take the couch."

"Bones, what, no, you can take my bed."

"No, Booth, not with your back problems."

"One night on the couch is not going to destroy my back."

"But you could hurt it and leave you incapable of working and I don't want to work with any other FBI agents. Remember?"

He remembered all right. She told him that when they went ice skating. When they held hands and laughed and sometimes slipped and fell. It was a great night, despite the whole reason being so that he wouldn't fall into a coma. She was his that night. No Agent Perotta or unsolved murder cases could stand in the way of that. Just her and the ice. His two favorite homes.

"I remember." He smiled. "You know what, why don't we just share my bed? We've slept in the same bed before and unless you've started snoring recently, I think we'll be okay."

Silence. Booth hated silence. Silence meant no, silence meant—

"Okay." Brennan whispered, her eyes looking up at him.

He bit back his bottom lip to stop from letting out a noise of surprise. A twinge of anxiousness suddenly settled into his chest. Yes, he and Brennan had shared a bed before but that wouldn't make it easier. She would be inches away. Quiet and tainted with sleep and craving to be touched.

And now that he knew he was in love with her?

He should have fought harder to sleep on the couch.

* * *

They spent the rest of the night talking. Enjoying each other's presence. Loud laughter mirroring the roaring thunder outdoors. The absence of power was the furthest thing from their minds.

Booth spent over half an hour trying to get Brennan to spill some details about her latest book ("C'mon, Bones, just tell me _one_ badass thing Agent Andy does"). Brennan kept her mouth shut ("You'll just have to buy the book, Booth." "You won't even give me a copy for free?!") much to her partner's dismay.

"Did you at least dedicate the book to me again?" Booth prodded.

"Was multiple dedications already not enough for you? You want the world to know yet again that you're the ' _best'_?" Brennan teased, reaching to pinch his cheek.

Booth ducked his head away, a smile claiming his lips. "I'm the best, huh?"

"Considering the amount of cases you close with my help and the fact that I am the top forensic anthropologist in America and I would only be partnered with someone of my caliber, then yes. You are the best from what I can calculate."

"I think that's the nicest thing you've ever said to me, Bones."

"I can be nice," she said softly.

"I know that. You just don't give your heart enough credit." Booth rubbed her arm reassuringly.

"You mean my brain. Our emotions and personalities come from our brain, not our heart."

"Science can't explain everything, Bones. Trust me."

Science could never explain why he felt more complete when she was around. Science could never explain why he knew from the moment he met her, he knew she was _the one._ Science could never explain why someone so frustrating, someone so challenging, someone so opposite of him could actually be his other half.

A stifled yawn broke his thoughts. "Booth, what time do you think it is?"

Booth looked outside, seeing nothing but cold darkness. "Maybe ten or eleven. We've been talking for a long time. Are you tired?"

"No"— _yawn_ —"Well, yes. It's been a long day for me. I was writing all day before I went for a run. And no, I'm still not going to divulge about what Agent Andy is up to."

"I'm getting tired too." Booth slid out from her grip and stood up. "I spent my whole day doing… nothing."

Brennan laughed.

He snuck into his bedroom, slipping out of his t-shirt and sweatpants and into a pair of flannel pajama pants. He opened up his bedroom door, calling out, "Are you comfortable sleeping in that?"

Brennan stepped into view, walking towards him. "Yeah, this is fine." And then she stopped. Gulped. Gave a startled look over his body. "Are you sleeping like _that_?"

Booth looked down at his bare chest. "Um, yeah, this is how I usually sleep. Do you want me to put on a shirt?"

"No!" She said it quickly. Judging by the widening of her eyes, she said it _too_ quickly.

He couldn't hold back his smirk as he maneuvered his way back to his bed and propped himself against the headboard. Brennan padded behind him, closing the door and settling onto her side of the bed.

The _other_ side of the bed.

Not her side.

There were no sides.

Yet.

She was painfully far away, curling under the blankets. His navy comforter engulfed her with her head just sticking out as she pulled a pillow under her head.

"Thanks, Booth," she said.

"For what?"

"Letting me stay here."

"Bones, I would have boarded up the door if you tried to leave. There's no way I would have left you go home in that kind of weather. Partners do anything for each other, remember?"

"I remember."

Booth settled into bed, his back facing towards Brennan, deciding that it would be too torturous if he had to look at her while she slept and his mind ran wild. She was only inches away but it felt like miles. To have something so close but so far wasn't a feeling Booth used to.

Brennan was wrong. She was brilliant. But wrong. Feelings aren't fleeting. They are like waves. They pull you into the vast ocean and surely you are going to drown. You cannot make it back to shore as you fall harder and faster for the person. She is his lifeboat, but he still can't swim to it. The waves are too rough and somehow he's still swimming but someday he'll grow too tired. Maybe he'll slip under the current. Maybe she'll save him.

To his surprise, he fell asleep quickly that night.

He must of forgotten how comforting a shared bed felt.

* * *

The storm was gone when he woke up. The sun was pale and yellow and peeked through the window blinds. Lights emerged from his living room and there was a soft murmur of regained life.

His chest felt heavy. He thought it was from being tired. Or that his heart finally gave out from worrying about Brennan. But his skin felt warm and it wasn't from a blanket. He looked down and saw Brennan asleep on his chest, her arm slung across his abdomen.

If her touch was a match, then his body was a wildfire.

His mind screamed _move_ but his heart said stay. He didn't know what her reaction would be when she woke up. Would her eyes widen in fear? Would she laugh? Would she be embarrassed?

Booth was afraid to find out. But he was also afraid to interrupt this moment. He hadn't felt something like this since his coma dream. Except this time it was real.

Waking up to his favorite person.

That was real.

She looked so beautiful asleep. Alabaster skin and soft lips. The stress of death and murder was no longer evident on her face. Tranquility made her look small. Not weak but relaxed. She did not have to fight the injustice of the world right now. Instead, she held onto him.

Booth still didn't know how this happened. Did he wrap his arms around her? Did she find her way to him first? They fell asleep back to back. He woke up to one of the most intimate moments of his life.

Intimacy wasn't only sex. It was closeness. He had never trusted someone so much in his entire life. He had proposed once. Thought he fell in love twice. But Brennan made every other relationship in his life feel nearly insignificant (with the exception of Parker and Pops). They were just another blip on his radar. When it came to her he could never articulate how he really felt. Words simply held no weight.

It was probably good that he couldn't. Or he might of have said something already and ruined the most cherished part of his life. Sweets wasn't wrong when he said that Booth and Brennan had a deep emotional connection.

He just didn't know how deep. Neither did Brennan. Booth could barely explain it either.

She never called him her best friend―no, that was _Angela._ But maybe they were something more. They called each other partners. It was true. However, it could never truly explain them. Partners was too vague of a word. He looked it up in the dictionary once. Partner. _Noun_. A person who shares or is associated with another in some action or endeavor. They did, of course, "share with another in some action". That was their everyday: discovering a set of remains, finding the killer, catching the killer, putting the killer behind bars. But that definition forgot everything else.

It forgot ice skating and going out for drinks and making each other dinner and gazing at stars. Laughing till they cried and hugging for comfort and fixing her plumbing. Accidentally letting those three words and seven letters slip and then covering it up by saying it was in an attagirl kind of way.

What was _that?_

And now he was even more confused as she curled against his bare chest, her soft tendrils of hair brushing against his skin. He still couldn't breathe properly. Half from the fear of waking her up, half from wondering what this all meant. He never wanted anything to change between them.

Except for one thing.

He wanted to kiss her. He wanted to claim her smile with his lips. He wanted to taste her, whatever that flavor was. He wanted to show her that not all relationships ended badly. He wanted to be the one.

But he could never figure out what she wanted.

She called him the people person and yet, he could never truly read her. He took pride in knowing her so well. He knew when she was sad, when she was proud of her attempt at a joke, when she just needed him to be there. But when it came to _this,_ whatever that really was, he was lost. He betted on a lot of things in his life, but he would never bet on his relationship with her.

He thought about trying to fall back asleep. It would easier than letting his mind run so rampantly. But he also wanted to watch her. Watch how her chest rose and fell. How soft puffs of air escaped from her lips. How someone so beautiful and intelligent could be in his arms.

He wasn't sure how long he had been looking at her. Could have been seconds. Maybe minutes. Possibly an hour. They did that a lot: losing all sense of time when it was just the two of them. He was about to fall into sweet oblivion as his heart stopped racing and the warmth of her settled from a raging fire into a candle flicker.

And then she moved.

Her hand slipped off of his chest and her eyelids fluttered open, revealing her cerulean eyes.

"Booth?"

"Good morning," he croaked out. Booth was known for his confidence and cockiness but now, each syllable was like glass cutting his throat.

She began to prop herself up. Her cheek was no longer against him. Her fingers were no longer splayed across his slide. The fire was burning out. "How did I―How did _we_ …?"

"I don't know. I woke up and we were just laying here like this."

"How long have you been awake?"

"Maybe half an hour." He squeaked.

"Why didn't you wake me up?"

"You looked peaceful."

Brennan still didn't jump and scream and run away from his bed like he anticipated. Her legs were still brushed against his and if he leaned forward by a few inches, he could rest his forehead against hers. Her eyes were awash with green. They always did that when she was thinking.

"Well, I did sleep surprisingly well last night." Brennan mused.

Booth wanted to scream.

"So, um," he cleared this throat. "What do you want to do? Do you want breakfast? Do you want to go to dinner or―"

Brennan cut him off. "Breakfast here would be fine."

She now watched him in amusement, he noted. She wasn't freaked out about this. It was him who was. And she probably thought it was funny. A FBI agent who has the seen the worst of worst getting scared about accidentally falling asleep so close to one another? It was the punchline to one of her ill-fated jokes.

Brennan could rationalize her way out of a situation like this and see it as nothing more than wanting to be warm at night. But Booth was wrought with emotions and feelings and what ifs.

"Sounds good." He finally said, slipping out of bed and throwing on a ragged t-shirt. Brennan followed him to the kitchen, sitting down in a chair as he pulled out ingredients for pancakes.

The apartment was quiet once again, minus a few murmurings. Booth slipped back into normal as he cracked wide smiles and let out breaths of laughter. She smiled back at him with similar joy and the urge to kiss her was stronger than ever.

Booth set a pile of pancakes before the two of them as he sat down in the chair across from her. Brennan grabbed a couple, poured on some syrup, and then dug in. He tried to focus on cutting his pancakes but couldn't help himself from watching her.

"Hey, Booth," Brennan said after her second bite.

"Yeah?"

"You know how I asked you as to how we ended up sleeping like that?"

"Mhmm…"

"It was me. I woke up in the middle of the night, felt cold, and decided to curl up next to you."

Booth nearly dropped his fork.

* * *

 **Expect an update within a week or two - I'll be busy soon, however. I just got accepted into screenwriting program at NYU that will occupy a lot of my time on top of being a junior in high school.**

 **Nevertheless, hope you enjoyed this! Please review :)**


	2. Nightmares

**I was going to write something cute and fluffy like the first chapter, but then this happened ... I hope I captured the characters well. This is the first time I've ever truly attempted "angst" - it gets pretty heart warming pretty fast though. Enjoy!**

* * *

She wasn't sure if she would ever get the view of Booth with his back torn and bloody out of her head. Red rivers of blood carved ravines into his shoulders and across his spine. His eyes were almost black. Dark and remembering of a past he thought he lost in Iraq. The man she found equated to strength was broken.

It was two men who whipped him. A pair of sadistic serial killers who found pleasure in pain. They hunted after people of success and laughed as each strike of their whip brought another wave of screams from their victims. It was a kind of rush that even left Sweets mortified.

Brennan wasn't surprised when Booth went to search for the men on his own. She was enraged but not flummoxed. He had told her once before how he would kill for her, how he would die for her. She always wished it would never get to that degree, but the day that he took a bullet for her at the karaoke bar solidified her fear.

Booth would do anything for her and because of that, she knew she may someday be his death sentence.

Brennan wasn't aware of Booth's disappearance until she called his phone one, two, three, four times, and he still didn't pick up. That wasn't Booth. He lived by his phone, especially when she called. They had a kind of tether to one another that defied Brennan's concept of what a relationship meant. When she needed him, he was there, and vise versa.

But now she needed him, and he wasn't picking up. Her foot tapped against the floor to the beat of her _Come on, Booth. Pick up, pick up, oh please pick up._ Angela discovered her friend, distraught and barely keeping it together. After getting an answer from Brennan as to what was going on, Angela worked to track Booth's phone.

Brennan found herself sitting in the back of a FBI truck as a swarm of agents barged into the abandoned factory where the men had taken Booth. Her tongue felt like lead in her mouth. She didn't want to ask the worst of questions.

 _What if he's not there?_

 _What if he's hurt so badly, he can't work anymore?_

 _What if he's dead?_

The pair of serial killers came out first, hair disheveled and heavy cuffs hanging around their wrists. Their faces were twisted with madness rather than defeat. It was what Sweets said at the beginning of the case: the men wanted to be caught. This was their ultimate feat. Taking on a successful and decorated ranger-turned-FBI agent.

But they didn't succeed. Booth followed, his left arm slung around a fellow agent who helped him walk out. His white button up shirt was tattered and covered in a smattering of blood. A bruise was beginning to form around his right eye while his bottom lip throbbed. Brennan couldn't sit any longer and ran towards her partner. He was alive. That's all that mattered. He was alive.

"Bones," he mumbled out, his words tripping over his swollen lip.

"Booth," she said, reaching to pull him into a hug, but he put his arm out.

"I'm sorry, Bones. But everything… everything hurts." He shut his eyes, and she could see his chest tremble with each breath.

She watched on as a paramedic sat Booth in an ambulance and tended to his immediate wounds. He winced at the delicate touch of the paramedic, and Brennan couldn't help herself from extending a hand to her friend. His hand was much larger, and it hurt every time his grip got suddenly tighter, but she barely noticed. She had never seen him so battered before. The paramedic cut away his shirt, giving way to his back which was slashed and ripped with smears of blood and lesions.

"It's not that bad," he tried to assure with a weak smile. "I've experience worse."

Brennan swallowed, pushing the image out of her head as to what could have been worse. Booth barely talked about his days of being in the military. She only knew by his x-rays the torture he must have endured. Beatings and shattered bones and unrepairable damage. Within their own field of work, she had seen him get hit by a bomb, shot in the chest, trapped in a ship at sea. But there was something about this case that Brennan couldn't get out her head.

She should have been there.

She should have saved him.

But he still attempted to smile and squeeze her hand and tell her he would be fine. And she hated him for it. Well, she didn't _hate_ him. But she wanted him to stop being her knight in shining armor for once. His mortality taunted her in a way she wasn't used to. Of course, she cared about him. He was her best friend next to Angela. But something crushed her ribs and consumed her heart at the thought of something even worse happening to Booth, and Brennan didn't know how to rationalize her way through it. There was no study that could predict what her life would be like without him.

"Booth," she said, looking into his eyes, "Come to my place tonight."

"I'm fine, Bones." His eyes were cloudy.

"No, Booth, you're not. You just got beaten, and you're clearly in a lot of pain."

"There's nothing that Tylenol can't cure."

" _Booth._ "

"Bones, I don't want to fight with you about this. I'm tired, okay? I just want to go home."

They didn't speak many more words before Booth was taken away to the hospital so doctors could give him a final once over. Even as the blood was being wiped away from his skin, he couldn't let his courageous FBI persona go. But Brennan knew Booth was faking that small grin he threw towards the tending paramedic and the thumbs up he gave Brennan before being packed into the back of the ambulance.

"I'll see you tomorrow, Bones." He said.

"Goodnight, Booth."

The anxiety returned, sitting at the base of her rib cage like a bird wanting to break free. It knocked against her bones and left her shaking as she drove home. Losing her partner was never a novel she wanted to write.

* * *

It was three a.m., and there was a quiet knock at her door.

Brennan opened to her door to see Booth. He looked small, uncharacteristically dwarfed in his grey sweatpants and FBI jacket. Blackness plagued his eyes, and his skin was pale. This was her Booth. Not the one who stayed stoic around his colleagues and doctors. This was the one who felt too much and wore emotion like clothing.

"I had a nightmare."

His words were so soft, she wasn't sure if she heard him correctly.

"They wouldn't stop," he murmured as he stepped into her apartment. She shut the door behind him and followed him. He went to sit on her couch, but she reached out to his arm.

"Lie on my bed," she said. "It won't agitate your back as much."

His fingers fumbled with hers as he traipsed behind her towards her room. He was shaking, and Brennan's throat tightened. She had never seen her partner in such distress before.

"They kept whipping me," he shuddered as he gently laid down onto her bed, stomach first, "and I couldn't do anything about it."

Brennan sat on her side of the bed, tucking her feet underneath her. She had devoted her entire career to studying cultures and how humans cared for one another and yet, now, she didn't know what to do. He barely even looked at her. She felt tempted to rest a comforting hand on his shoulder or smooth her thumb over the crown of his head, but she kept her hands in her lap.

"The pain was so bad," he winced. "And it just wouldn't stop. One of them was reaching for a gun. I was screaming for help but—"

"But what, Booth?"

"But you weren't there."

Brennan felt as if the air had been punched out of her. It didn't matter that it was a dream. She let him down. She wasn't there for him like he had always been there for her.

"Then you should have brought me with you." She pressed, almost pleaded. "You know I am capable in the field, Booth. I could have helped you. This didn't have to happen."

"No, Bones. You could have gotten killed. I know I dreamed that you didn't help me, but that doesn't matter. You can't go into situations like those."

"But you can't _either._ The statistical probability of you arresting two serial killers by yourself is near impossible. I'm your partner. I'm supposed to help." Her words started to taste like poison as sadness was replaced with anger. Didn't he care? Didn't he realize she needed him?

"I lived. I'll be fine." He snapped back. "It was a nightmare. I have a lot of them. Wars, shootings, beatings. I'm used to it."

"Booth…"

His lip still throbbed, and his eyelid was streaked with smudges of black and blue. He reminded her of a little boy, one who was too brave to admit defeat, but too broken to fight back. She watched his Adam's Apple get caught in his throat as he tried to swallow. His final wall was coming down.

"The one nightmare I cannot handle," his voice quavered, "is the one where I am awake and you are dead because of me."

Brennan wasn't sure of what to say.

"You're my partner… my best friend. It's my job to protect you. And I know you hate me being the alpha male and all that other anthropology crap, but it's the truth. I would get whipped a hundred more times if it meant that you would be safe."

"You need to be saved, too."

"Come on, Bones, you saved me _eventually_. You tried calling me, then Angela traced my location, and soon enough, the FBI got me out of there. It's all because of you, Bones." She could tell he was trying to lighten the mood.

"If only I figured out you were gone sooner..." her voice trailed off.

"I'm still here." He nudged closer towards her and rested one of his hands on her knee. " _We're_ still here."

"Because the center holds," Brennan recalls from their conversation years before.

"Me and you," Booth gently smiled. It was real now. "We will hold."

She was quiet for a moment. "Do you feel better?"

"Well, my back still hurts."

"No, I meant," she looked at him, "do you feel like you'll have another nightmare?"

Booth slowly shook his head. "Not anymore now that you're here."

His words hung heavy in the air. Sometimes the connection formed between him and her took Brennan aback. Their friendship was strong. It had to be. They encountered the horrors of murder everyday: mutilated bodies and careless killers and broken families. They needed someone to lean on. They, of course, had the rest of their Jeffersonian family to look to for support, but there was something different about the two of them. A kind of trust and loyalty that Sweet's book could never articulate correctly. Brennan didn't like to think about herself as being dependent on another. But maybe it wasn't dependence. Maybe it was them making each other into better people.

Booth cleared his throat. "It's late. I should—"

"You're staying here." Brennan said. "And I'll be right here because even though nightmares are nothing more than false sensations and thoughts, I know how they can feel, and you need your sleep."

"Thanks, Bones." He said softly, gazing at her with earnest eyes.

As he pulled off his sweatshirt, his shirt hiked up too, giving way to the tail end of gashes down his back. His normally tan skin was puckered with rope burns and scrapes. She was always struck by the breadth of his shoulders and the muscles that lined his back, the kind of external strength that mirrored his mentality. Now he looked a worn stuffed animal, almost unsewn at the seams.

"Can I see?" She asked, eyes flicking towards his hem of his shirt.

He peeled off his navy tee, shivering at breath of air against his torn skin. Laying stomach down on the bed, he asked, "So, how bad does it look?"

A majority of his wounds were bandaged. White stripes of surgical tape and gauze wallpapered his skin. The entirety of his back was nearly covered, stretching from his shoulders down towards the small of his back.

"I can't see much." She brought a hesitant hand to his side, letting it graze over a patch of exposed skin. "It feels like you've broke your 8th and 9th ribs."

"Yeah." Booth sucked in a breath. "The doctors said they were just fractures and should heal by themselves. As long as I don't do anything too strenuous, I'll be okay."

"What does that mean for us?" Brennan's thumb pondered over the plane of his lower back. "How long will it be before you can return to fieldwork?"

"Doc said I have to spend at least a couple of days at home. From there, it's desk work for a week or two. I can visit you at the lab though." He lightly laughed. "Even though I still want to drive a tank through that place."

Brennan laughed with him.

"Try not to miss me too much while I'm gone for those few days." Booth teased.

"How can I miss you if you never leave me alone?" She countered. "I think I can count on my fingers how many times we've gone a day without seeing each other."

"You're the one who invited me into her bed."

She felt heat spread across her cheeks. "That was me being a good partner."

He looked at her. _Really_ looked at her. Locked gazes and shared breaths. His eyes were everything that a poet loves. Dark galaxies, summer nights, faint stars, something more, something indescribable. Brennan knew souls weren't real. There was no scientific proof of them existing. But his eyes vied for a second opinion.

She liked (loved) the way he looked at her.

Booth's words matched his eyes. "That was you being a good _friend_ , Bones."

Her alarm clock blinked 3:45 a.m, and Brennan felt a wave of drowsiness settle over her. She had barely slept well before Booth came knocking at her door. A new worry about Booth came another fit of tosses and turns. She would never get used to it, she thought. This kind of caring. It almost scared her.

Booth let out a yawn, their actions falling in sync once again. He huffed out a sigh of pain as he crawled under her sheet. Brennan slipped under the covers too, facing him.

"Thanks, Bones. I, uh, haven't been able to turn to someone like this in a long time."

"Angela told me it's what friends do, Booth."

His lips ticked up into a tired smile. "Yeah. It is. Goodnight, Bones."

"Technically, it's the morning." She corrected.

He shut his eyes, still smiling. "Good morning, Bones."

* * *

For the second time that week, Brennan woke up with herself curled up next to Booth. His arms were pushed under his pillow and head while her head wound up pressed into the crook of his side. Her nose brushed against his warm skin as she slipped into the hazy world caught between sleep and wakefulness. She kept her eyes shut, not wanting to wake up, not wanting to rationalize her way through the meaning of _this_. _This_ was nice and comforting and precarious all at once. Infinite meanings for a singular moment.

Her sheets smelled like him. His soap and the hospital's antiseptics. A blanket tangled around her legs, and her pillow was nowhere to be found in her half-asleep effort to reach for it. She could feel the heat of the morning sun graze her cheek, and she _really_ should be getting up, but her eyelids wouldn't budge.

It was to be blamed upon her lack of sleep, this delirious serenity of lying with him. It wasn't _him_ ; it was her's brain biological need to recharge so she could tackle another grueling day of work. But she couldn't deny that him being there was… pleasant. His even breaths brought her heart rate back to a steady beat, and there was a warmth about him that she never found within her thousand thread count sheets.

"I know you're awake, Bones," she heard Booth mumble into his pillow.

"No, I'm not." She murmured back.

"I can feel you moving against my side."

"I'm dreaming." Her lips nearly skimmed his skin on the last syllable.

"You, Temperance Brennan, are not a morning person." He teased with a smile.

"Yes, I am. Just not today considering I didn't sleep well last night. It didn't help that someone came knocking at _three in the morning._ " She chastised him for show, when really, she didn't mind that he came over.

"Being bitter this early isn't good for you, Bones."

"Says who?" Brennan fired back even though at this point, she knew he was just making fun of her.

"Einstein?"

"He was a physicist, Booth. I'm pretty sure he could care less about how people are in the morning."

She could feel Booth pull his arms out from under his pillow and shift onto his side. Her head slipped onto the mattress, and she almost felt tempted to continue lying there like that. Maybe if she ignored Booth, she could sleep for a few more minutes. Her phone hadn't rang to signify yet another murder to solve, and for once, she embraced a lazy morning with open arms.

Or maybe that would have been the case if Booth's hands hadn't encased her wrists, hauling her up the bed so they were sharing the same pillow, face to face.

"Good morning again, Bones." His smile was infuriating.

"Good morning, Booth," she huffed back.

"What do you have planned for today?" He asked eagerly. The man that padded into her apartment before the crack of dawn, lost and afraid, had disappeared.

"Unless I get a call from the lab, absolutely nothing." She said flatly.

"Are you even physically capable of taking a day off?"

"Booth, I'm not a robot."

"No, you're _you._ You know, the person who spends their vacations _studying_ _bones_." Booth said it as if it was the most incredulous thing in the world.

"Well, now I'm tired and not on vacation," she muttered.

Alas, her eyes finally gave up and decided to stay open. She watched Booth instead. He was quiet, mouth on the verge of moving like he was testing each word before speaking. "Thanks again, Bones."

Her forehead crinkled. "You don't have to keep saying thank you."

"I know. But you should hear it."

"Why?"

"I don't think you let yourself realize how good of a person you are, Bones."

"I know I'm a good person, Booth. I'm the best forensic anthropologist in the world. I am a New York Times' best seller. I'm better than good." Brennan deadpanned.

"Well, you certainly aren't modest." He laughed but quickly turned serious again. "What I meant is… you sell yourself short on what you mean to other people. Just because your parents and brother left doesn't mean everyone will. I'm still here. I'm always here."

"I know, Booth."

His hands grabbed onto hers. "You need to know that, okay? I won't leave."

"I know." She repeated.

"Good." His arms were around her now, pulling her close.

"Booth," she said, her words muffled by the proximity to his chest. "Doesn't this hurt your back?"

"I don't care."

And that's how Brennan fell asleep for the third time in the same bed as Booth. She blamed it on exhaustion and how tight his grip was. It was a blunder masked by weariness. Nothing more. Nothing to be talked about when they woke up. It was yet another instance of them being there for each other. Partners. Friends.

Perfectly rational.

* * *

 **Thanks for all of the positive reviews on the first chapter as well as the faves and follows. I hope this chapter lived up to the first one :) I'm looking towards churning out another chapter this week but no promises. Stay tuned.**

 **Review?**


	3. Illnesses & Ice Cream

**I wished to get this up earlier, but of course life and school gets in the way. I really tried to teach myself how to write Booth and Brennan's banter in this chapter because how could it be B &B without a healthy dose of bickering? I hope I did them justice. Enjoy!**

* * *

Seeley Booth didn't know it was possible for Temperance Brennan to get sick.

He had seen her fall slightly under the weather before. Sniffles and minor coughs and scratchy throats that she chalked up to allergies (she didn't have allergies). So, he'd bring her an extra cup of coffee and place a strong hand on the small of her back as she coughed her way through a case. It was never bad though. Her eyes would fall on the spectrum of glassy, and her words wouldn't carry as much bite, but she didn't stop working. Within a couple days, the amount of tissues in her waste bin would return to a normal amount, and she would be back to ribbing Booth over the most minuscule things. The scratch on the record of Brennan would be scrubbed over, and rhythm resumed.

But now she was _ill._ Fever ridden, dazed eyes, confined to the bed _ill._

And of course, Booth had no clue because Brennan was stubborn and prideful and unable to admit defeat. Even to the flu.

"Bones!" Booth's overly chipped voice rang through the lab. "Where are you? I just got a call about a case out near Bethesda."

He was met by the confused stares of Angela and Cam.

"Did she not tell you?" Angela's forehead crinkled. "Brennan's home with the flu… and based on your facial expression, no, she did not tell you. Why does that not even surprise me?"

"Bones? _Sick?_ And not even here at the Jeffersonian? Are you sure we're talking about the same person?" Booth said with a small laugh.

"I was shocked myself," Cam said. "She called in sick this morning. Must be a hell of a virus."

It didn't even cross Booth's mind that he could visit her later. Or call her on the phone to check in on how she was doing. Instead, he rang up his boss, pawned the Bethesda case off to some other agent, and rushed over to Brennan's apartment.

They had become closer within the past couple weeks, if that was even possible. His life was consumed by her, and it was dizzying and delightful all at once. He'd catch a crime movie on television, and he could picture her conjecturing the science of it. He'd find her eyes in that moment between blue sky and sunset that didn't have a word. He'd confuse the warmth of the sun with her fingers splayed across his chest.

Their _situation_ , if he could define it, was something he didn't want to become used to. Her wrapped up in his sheets was too addicting of a thought for a degenerate gambler to handle. It had happened three times now: falling asleep next to each other. Falling asleep _with_ each other. Arms encasing bodies, fingers brushing hip bones, lips holding back a series of infinities until he could find the right words. But he decided he was lucky he didn't talk in his sleep or his wish for a forever could roll across his tongue into a tragic ending.

Booth didn't knock at her door this time. He walked right in and heard a mumble of "Who's there?" from his sick partner's room. He found her buried under a mountain of blankets with rogue tissues scattered across the floor. She was pale, and her hair was endearingly messy despite looking worse for wear. Her eyes were more grey than usual, a dullness painted across her ocean blues. A half read book was haphazardly tossed at the foot of her bed, and he watched the sheets shake under her rattle of a cough.

"Hey, Bones." He said, throwing away some of the tissues with a slight grimace.

"Booth? What are you doing here?" Even her confident voice was hindered by the virus she succumbed to.

"To check on my partner obviously."

"Shouldn't you be at work with a case or something?" She tried to sound annoyed, but her stuffed nose only made her sound disappointed. He bit back his bottom lip from smiling at the thought of her missing him.

"We were supposed to solve a case out in Bethesda, but when I heard you were sick, I came over here instead. It's no fun working without you."

A smile snuck through another string of coughs. "You never stop being the charmer, do you?"

"Don't pretend you don't enjoy it, Bones." Booth was beaming.

"Only if it's from you, Booth."

He could have sworn she messed his heart intentionally.

Before venturing too far into that thought, Booth peeled off his jacket and tie, and then slid next to Brennan on her bed.

"Booth! You're going to get sick if you sit this close to me."

"Hmm," he hummed as if he was thinking. "It's worth it."

"How are aches, coughs, sneezing, and the inability to stomach any food worth it?"

"Well, if you _do_ get me sick with all that nastiness then you can come over to _my_ apartment and take care of _me."_

Brennan glared at him. "I might be sick, Booth, but I'm not incapable of taking care of myself."

His pleading puppy eyes were in effect. "Then think of it as doing it for me. You wouldn't want me to be lonely, would you, oh best friend of mine?"

"Since when did you suddenly decide I was your best friend?" It wasn't antagonizing, her question. It was quiet with curiosity.

"Five years ago."

"We've known each other for five years."

"Best five years of friendship I've ever had." He said honestly.

"You must have friends beyond me." Her voice almost sounded sad.

"Well, Cam I guess. And I do care about Angela and Hodgins and Sweets. It's just not the same."

"What about other agents at the FBI?"

"They're boring and all the same. Haven't you notice I'm the only person who dares to wear a colorful tie?"

"I guess I do rub off on you." She laughed through a cough.

"That you do, Bones, that you do."

Brennan stared at her hands then, quiet and thinking. "You've rubbed off on me too."

"Really?" He felt tempted to reach out and tip her chin towards him but decided against it. She was opening up to him more nowadays, and it gave him a sense of hope that his gut shouldn't govern.

"I'm trying to be less rational."

"There's nothing wrong with being rational, Bones." He offered with a gentle smile. "It makes you, well, you."

"I don't want to be so cold anymore, Booth." She sniffled, subconsciously trying to deflect attention away from the feeling behind her words. "I feel like I'm missing out on so many things because of it."

"You're not cold." He defended. She was so strong and so confident and so proud about so many things, seeing her like this made his chest tighten. A weakness wasn't shameful, but it wasn't a word he'd think to use when talking about her.

"That's not what Sweets says. He says I'm unable to have real relationships because I can't trust people due to my parents leaving me when I was so young."

"Since when did you believe in psychology?" Booth said. "C'mon Bones, it's not only you. I struggle with trusting people too."

She looked at him, eyes momentarily snapping out of their ill haze. "Nearly everyone likes you, Booth, even if you don't 'trust' them. They flirt with you and compliment you and want to be like you. I'm abrasive, and most people misconstrue my words. They don't like me because of it."

"Well," he breathed out into a soft smile, "I like you."

"You have to. You're my partner."

"I didn't have to continue working with you. My superiors surely didn't want me to."

"That's stupid. You couldn't do your job without me considering the next closest forensic anthropologist is in Montreal."

He continued: "And even when my superiors scolded me for working with you squints, I didn't care. You were a great asset, and now you're an even better friend. And I'm not the only one who thinks that. Angela, Hodgins, Cam, your squinterns. But mostly me. I like you the best."

His mouth wanted to say love. His brain forced his vocal cords to say like. His body probably would never agree with itself.

"I like you the best too, Booth."

And just like that, his Brennan was back. Curved lips and kind words and everything that wasn't cold.

She buried her face into a blanket as another series of vicious coughs tore through her lungs. She mumbled a weak "Sorry" and flopped back onto her pillow. Miserableness was written across her mouth with a pout.

"Have you taken any medicine yet?" Booth asked.

No matter how sick Brennan was, her eyes could still turn into daggers. "As I already told you, Booth, I am capable to taking care of myself."

"I was only making sure." He said.

"Why do you do that?" She sighed.

"Do what?"

"Be so nice."

"I'm just being me, Bones."

Brennan smiled at that before her lungs gave up on her again. She threw up her hands and let out a noise of exasperation. Her alabaster skin was now brushed with a light tinge of green, and her eyes looked like window panes on a rainy day. The flu had her under its reign.

"You should probably stop talking, Bones." Booth tried to say gently. "Or you're only going to get worse."

"I'm fine, Booth." She argued, but the scratch in her throat suggested otherwise.

"No, you need your rest. I should get going."

"I'm _fine._ You don't have to go."

"Now I think you just want me to get sick."

"Why would I want to do that? Having the flu is not fun."

"Good thing you've got me here with you then."

"For the last time, Booth," Brennan rolled her eyes, "you're not taking care of me."

"I'm providing emotional support." He grinned, knowing he was getting under her skin.

Before she could get out another rebuttal, a yawn claimed her mouth. Her eyelids started droop, and she gravitated towards Booth, pushing her pillow and head up against his arm. He tried not to notice the proximity between the two of them and how warm his skin was getting. This was becoming their new normal, closeness masked by tiredness, and yet it still took him back. His heart began to beat a second faster.

"The medicine is starting to kick in," she yawned again. "And one of its side effects is drowsiness."

"I have taken medicine before, Bones." Booth lightly laughed. "Are you sure you don't want me to go?"

"Stay." Her tongue was heavy with sleep. "Tell me a story."

"A story? You're the best selling novelist, not me."

She craned her neck to look up at him. Her eyes had a defeated softness to them, and he almost scooped her up into his arms right then and there. But he kept his hands rested at his sides and pushed any protective alpha male thought out of his head.

"Please, Booth."

She was straight out of one of his comic books, the kryptonite to his hero. "Of course, Bones."

He let out a dramatic breath like how he used to do when he would read to Parker. "Once upon a time, there was a very handsome FBI agent who thought he could solve every case by himself."

Brennan giggled into his side. Booth didn't even know she was capable of giggling, but here she was, snickering into his shirt.

"But then along came a very beautiful forensic anthropologist—"

"Beautiful?" Brennan interjected.

"Beautiful." Booth said with a smile as he watched a shade of pink spread across her pale skin. First, he made her giggle and now she was blushing and he was just waiting for his heart to give out from being so impossibly in love with his partner who believed in dopamine, not the intangible.

"And the forensic anthropologist was nothing like the FBI agent thought she would be," he continued. "She was smart and unapologetic and not afraid to be different. He thought she would be boring and overly squinty, but instead, she was the most brilliant person he had ever met."

"Booth…" she whispered. "Did you really think that?"

"Don't doubt it for a second. Now, will you stop interrupting my story?"

She nodded into his arm.

"Now, their first case started off _really_ well." He bit his lip back from grinning at what that _really_ meant. "But after some disagreements, they stopped working together. It wasn't until a year later that they were back together as partners, almost as if it was fate."

"Fate doesn't exist, Booth." Brennan said, ignoring her agreement to no longer interrupt.

Booth pretended he didn't hear her. "Unlike the first time, they didn't fight. They were actually getting along minus the times when the FBI agent tried to stop the forensic anthropologist from doing anything too dangerous. She was still a squint, and he didn't want her to get hurt."

"Have I ever gotten hurt before, Booth?" She argued.

"You got abducted by a killer within the first six months of us working together."

"You let me work with him!"

"Yeah, well, I didn't _know_ he was a killer…"

"So you basically admit it's your fault?"

"It doesn't sound like you want to hear my story, Bones."

"Fine, fine, I'll try to stay quiet."

They both knew she wouldn't.

"Soon, their partnership turned into a friendship. He began looking forward to solving cases with her and then getting dinner and drinks afterwards. She understood him in a way no one else at the FBI did despite them being almost complete opposites. He was religious; she was an atheist. He relied on his gut; she relied on logic. But somehow they made it work and quickly had the highest solve rate among any partnership at the FBI. The agent knew he never wanted to work alone again."

"Aw, that's sweet, Booth. You need me." He could hear her smirking, teasing.

"And you need me too, Bones, so don't try to rationalize your way out of that one."

"I won't."

Sometimes, he wondered what he did to deserve someone who nearly gave up on relationships to trust him so deeply.

"But what he cherished most were those moments when they weren't working. Singing _Hot Blooded_ , dining and dashing, eating mac and cheese. After having such an abnormal life, he enjoyed that kind of constant."

"I enjoy it too," she hummed.

"His favorite experience was going ice skating with her. He loved ice skating, and he wanted to make her liked it too. It was hard at first because she was so bad."

Even with her eyes shut, she punched him right in the arm. "I was _not_ that bad."

"You fell at least five times."

"That was because you let go of me!"

"If you can't skate by yourself, then you're a bad skater."

She just grumbled.

"But the FBI agent didn't mind," Booth resumed, "because he enjoyed teaching the forensic anthropologist. Even though they only went so he wouldn't fall into a coma, it became one of his favorite memories. And since she had the best teacher ever, the forensic anthropologist turned out to not be such a bad skater. She just needed a little help."

"Whatever you say, Booth."

"And now the FBI agent is here _taking care_ of his partner no matter how stubborn she is because she is his friend, and he doesn't want to work with anyone else. The heart and the brain is what he calls them. They complement each other."

Brennan pressed her head further into her pillow, her hand clasped around his forearm. Exhaustion crashed over her like a wave, and he heard her breaths begin to even out. Within seconds, she was gone, claimed by a world without murder and stress, only dreams and sweet serenity.

He whispered: "And the FBI agent and the forensic anthropologist lived happily ever after."

He brushed his lips against her forehead. It was sickly warm and slightly slicked with sweat, but he didn't think to care. His eyelids began to slip, and he dropped his head against his own pillow.

He fell into a dream about that happily ever after. The FBI agent learned the feeling of the forensic anthropologist smiling against his lips as they kissed. They shared a bed and had matching wedding bands. She called him her partner in life rather than just her partner in crime. They whispered senseless I love yous and talked about babies with her eyes and his hair.

Reality called it a happily never after.

* * *

Booth felt Brennan stir a couple hours later. _Felt_ was the key word. She painfully jabbed him in the side with her elbow as she attempted to quickly sit up and let out another succession of coughs that her moment of sleep had tampered down. Once her near barking quelled, she reached for the entire box of tissues and went through about seven of them before letting out a frustrated moan.

"Feeling any better?" Booth said meekly.

"Besides the feeling that I will cough up my lungs any second and my nose will stay permanently stuffed even though that's not logical," she rubbed her fingers over the bridge of her nose, "I'm not nauseous anymore."

"Well, that's something!" He cheered at the small victory. "Do you want to eat?"

"I'm pretty sure anything I eat will hurt my throat."

Booth was quiet for a second. "How about ice cream? You must have ice cream."

"What happened to soup being the magic cure for any illness?"

"As if you believe that," he smiled. "C'mon ice cream is fun. I can make us sundaes."

"How do you even know I have the ingredients for sundaes?" Brennan asked, eyebrows furrowed.

"Because I might have snuck over whipped cream and fudge sauce when you weren't looking the last time I came over." Booth said innocently.

"Booth!" She whacked him in the arm again. "My house isn't your refrigerator. Plus, I only like ice cream on special occasions. Who says I would ever even eat that stuff?"

"You being sick _is_ a special occasion. It's like leap year. It only happens every four years, maybe even less." Booth watched Brennan's defense come crumbling down with a half-hearted sigh. His mouth stretched further into a beam.

"You really are the worst sometimes," she huffed while pulling herself out from her crushing layers of bedding.

"Would the worst be making you an ice cream sundae?" He reached out to the grab the hand of his poorly partner.

She took his hand without a second thought, and he hoped she couldn't feel his racing pulse. Her hand was small in his, her fingers wrapping around his thumb like a newborn baby. He looked at her fingers and followed his gaze from her wrists up to her shoulders. The fabric that encased her frail body looked familiar. It looked like…

"Hey, is that my t-shirt, Bones?" Booth's voice caught a higher octave.

"Yeah. You left it in my car a week ago." Her tone was nonchalant, dismissive, thinking nothing of it. "Do you want it back?"

He swallowed. "No, it's fine. I have plenty other like it back at home."

"Good. It's comfortable." She tugged at the blue cotton hem. "And smells like you."

"Are you saying I smell good, Bones?" This he was good at. Not wrestling with his heart and the unexplainable that was them, but teasing her for moments that got the best of her tongue.

But Brennan was able to counter it. "Why do you think I keep you around, Booth?"

"Well, you smell terrible, Bones." Booth mocked as he let go of her hand and ducked into her kitchen to pull out the chocolate ice cream he knew she always had stashed away in her freezer.

"That's unfair. I've been trapped in my bed all day." She pouted.

"I'm just making fun of you." He reassured while grabbing the whipped cream and fudge he hid away in her fridge.

She laughed. "Oh, you're joking. That's a good one, Booth, because you usually think I smell good, don't you?"

"Yes, I do, Bones." He tipped his head back and squirted a bit of whipped cream into his mouth. He pointed the can towards her. "Want some?"

"No," she grimaced. "That's gross."

"Your loss." He swiftly concocted their sundaes, his with three scoops and piled high with peaks of cream and chocolate while hers was barely a full scoop.

"Thanks, Booth," she said after a bite. "You were right. This doesn't irritate my throat and tastes quite good."

"See? I got you." He watched some color return to her cheeks and eyes. A small smile played with her lips as she dug into another spoonful of their afternoon snack. This was another moment he could add to the story of them: sharing ice cream and bumping knees and sneaking glances.

Daring, Booth picked up a bit of whipped cream onto his index finger and smeared the dollop of it onto her nose. She dropped her spoon into her bowl and gave him an accusatory glance before a devious grin carved itself across her face.

"Oh, you're so going to regret that." She said, wiping off the glob and licking it off her finger with a pop.

"Really?" He leaned forward. "What are you going to do about it, Bones?"

Brennan reached for the can of whipped cream and sprayed it at right at him, his face now covered in frothy goodness. With his eyes shut, he could only feel her take his jaw into her hands and lick a stripe of whipped cream from his cheek, leaving a wet trail of infected saliva behind. He tried not to notice how painfully close her tongue was to the outer edge of his lips.

"Hope you enjoy the flu, Booth. I promise I'll take care of you." She said, nearly singing with childlike bemusement.

Booth wiped the cream from his eyelids in time to see Brennan walk back towards her bedroom, ice cream bowl in hand. Even with the flu, beauty radiated from her in a way he couldn't describe. His shirt hung from her slight frame, and oh so badly did his hands want to slip under the fabric and learn the map of her skin. Her hair fell like waves against her shoulders, and he knew she was his everything because he only saw a glimpse of her as she slipped into her room and yet his chest still rattled with the beat of his heart, and he couldn't stop smiling.

His happily ever after began here.

* * *

 **I'm not sure if it's clear, but the scene I'm talking about where Brennan got abducted is from 1x15 when Booth broke out of the hospital to save her. Thank you to everyone who has favorited and reviewed this story. It means everything to me and gives me a lot of confidence as a writer :)**


	4. Broken Pipes & Built Forts

**I wished to get this up earlier, but I had a bit of writer's block as to how I wanted to go about this chapter. Nevertheless, hope you enjoy this one. It has been fun to write!**

* * *

Brennan opened her door to see her partner standing outside, clutching onto his pillow like a little boy.

"The water pipe in my apartment broke, and my apartment flooded. Can I stay here for a night or two?" His eyes broke out into their pitiful puppy look.

"Of course," she said like it was a reflex. "You don't have to ask."

"Always knew I could count on you, Bones." Booth smiled as he threw his pillow onto her couch.

This was getting comfortable, the two of them nestled up in each other's apartments. She could distinguish his knock now: three sharp raps of impatience. Most of the time it was him picking her up to take her to a crime scene. But now there were these unspoken nights that left her sheets smelling like him for days. Her arm started to become used to reaching out to the plane of his chest, and she caught himself wishing for his warmth at 3 am.

Irrational, maybe. Irresistible, definitely.

Booth was still standing, hands resting on his hips. "Not to push my luck, but can I use your shower? I was planning to take one before my piping decided to give up on me."

Brennan nodded. "Towels are on the rack, and you can throw your dirty clothes into the hamper near the door. I was planning on doing a load soon anyways."

He began to edge towards the door. "I left a duffle bag of clothes in my car."

"I can get it, Booth. It's no problem." She watched him reach into his pocket and toss his keys towards her to which she caught with ease. "I just hope you don't mind smelling like coconuts."

"Didn't I already tell you, Bones? I love the way you smell." He said over his shoulder as he walked to her bathroom. She couldn't see his face, but she already knew he was smiling his characteristically Booth smile, blinding with charm.

Before rushing out to his car, Brennan quickly tidied up around her apartment and threw on a sweatshirt. Outside temperatures were starting to dip in the D.C. area with Christmas and the winter season steadfastly approaching. She was already trying to decide on a gift for Booth despite it being more reasonable to give him the gift in March. But she knew how happy it would make him and that in turn made her happy.

It was still terrifying to have her happiness so contingent upon another, but Brennan didn't know to restrain herself from wanting to see him smile. Everything she thought about relationships was starting to become like dark matter in space. Black nothingness. She originally thought she had relationships figured out. Anthropology told her people depended on each other to ensure the survival of civilizations. It was not out of love; it was out of necessity.

But what was the scientific fact behind the reason why she broke out into a smile when Booth's mouth stretched so inexplicably wide?

Chilled winds bit at her cheeks as Brennan dug through the backseat of Booth's SUV and pulled out a black duffel bag. It was light like he was packing for a weekend getaway. Instead this getaway was at her apartment, and for some reason her heartbeat picked up at the idea of a couple days without work and only Booth.

She swiftly ran back inside, missing the warmth of her apartment. A ride up the elevator, a couple strides down a hallway, and she was back at her doorway.

The sight of Booth leaning against the bookcase that divided the entry from her kitchen, however, almost made her slam her door shut as quickly as she opened it.

One of her towels was hanging low on his hips, the knot barely held together and ready to slip at any moment. He had his arms crossed in front of his chest as his fingers tapped against his flexed biceps, waiting. She had seen him shirtless multiple times now, but there was an intimacy about this that kept a breath caught in her lungs. Drops of water still trickled down his abdomen, outlining the creases of his abdomen down to the muscular V above his waistline.

"Took you long enough, Bones." He took his bag from her grip. "It's freezing in here when you're wearing just a towel."

"Sorry," she mumbled, hoping her eyes weren't as wide as they felt.

He clutched at his falling towel and disappeared into her bathroom. Brennan let out her trapped breath and shook her head. This would not be happening. Could not be happening. Her being entranced by Booth's appearance like a schoolgirl with a crush was not Brennan. She wasn't the one to be affected by this kind of thing. That was Angela's department to make a salacious comment about how Booth was a delicious dish begging to be eaten up. Yes, Booth was handsome, but he was also her partner and that was great. Perfect even. Nothing would ever change between them he once said. But if that kind of change that now flirted at the back of her brain were to occur, it wouldn't start here. It wouldn't be her biology getting the best of her and kissing him down his strong jawline and mapping out his muscles with her fingers. They had a history, and histories did not get tampered by the illogicality of falling into bed simply on the account he had the best body she had ever seen.

Maybe if she could admit the four lettered L word, it would be different.

Before her thoughts got the best of her, Booth traipsed into the kitchen, pulling a black tee over his head.

"I'm bored, Bones." He complained, drumming his thumb against the countertop.

"You just got here," Brennan replied, falling back into the rhythm of them. "How could you be bored already?"

"You still don't have a TV, and we've just about exhausted every CD you own. Even the Tibetan throat singers one." He cringed at that memory.

"You need to broaden your skies, Booth."

"It's broaden your horizons, Bones, and no, you're the one who needs to take a page out of the book of fun." He paused a moment, teeth pulling on his bottom lip as he thought. "I know! We should make a fort."

Brennan wrinkled her nose. "We're not children, Booth."

He was gleefully grinning, a boyish exuberance in his expression that Brennan used to detest but now thought of as something along the lines of cute. "No, we're having fun. Come on, we can grab some pillows, sheets, a couple chairs. Jared and I used to love making them."

Booth was pulling the younger brother card, and Brennan knew she couldn't say no. "There are extra blankets in the linen closet, and I can grab a couple chairs from the dining table."

"Have I told you lately how amazing you are, Bones?"

"I'm pretty sure you told me last week."

"Well, you're hearing it again."

He began hunting around for a few blankets and sheets while she hiked two chairs under her arms and walked to her room. Booth followed her and dropped the bedding onto the floor, lips still ticked upwards, and Brennan momentarily wondered if it hurt him to smile that much.

"Now, Bones," he rubbed his palms together. "Let me show you the art of fort making."

"Fort making is not an art, Booth." She admonished.

"Do you really have to suck the fun out of everything?" He asked flatly.

Brennan sat on her bed while Booth set up the chairs, claiming he had to get them apart to the exact inch. He draped a couple sheets across the backs of the chairs before rushing back into her living room and grabbing a couple couch cushions. Brennan tried to help him place pillows throughout the fort, but Booth kept moving them, saying that she needed to learn from the master. She only shook her head and for the first time in her life, she let him take control.

"Now, shoo," Booth said, waving his arms towards the doorway.

"What do you mean 'shoo'?" She argued, her hands falling onto her hips.

"I need to add the pièce de résistance," Booth grabbed onto Brennan's shoulders and began to walk her out of the room. "And I want it to be a surprise."

"It's just a fort, Booth." Brennan replied, her eyes rolling.

"When will you learn, Bones? I never just do anything."

She sighed in defeat and padded to the kitchen, deciding to make herself a cup of tea while Booth put the final touches on his so called artistry. She was so serious and he was so playful that it seemed unlikely that they would develop such a bond between them. But like protons and electrons, opposites attract.

The tea felt hot in her throat, filling in the cold cavities caused by the weary weather. There was an unexplainable warmth to her apartment though, a kind of snug happiness of two friends being holed up together, making forts and teasing each other. Her apartment had been so quiet for so long until he came stumbling in, blasting Foreigner and playing the air guitar. Now her space had become an extension of their friendship. Bumping knees and clinking beers and ordering chinese food at midnight.

Anything, everything, definitely them .

"It's done!" Booth called from her bedroom. Brennan set down her mug and began to walk towards her room until Booth came barrelling towards her, arms outstretched.

"Booth, what are you—" Brennan's words were cut off by Booth wrapping his arms around her legs, throwing her body over his shoulder. Her initial shrieks dissolved into laughter, shocked and enthralled all at once.

"Booth!" She managed to choke out.

"You seem like the type of person to never have been thrown over another person's shoulder. Tonight's a night of firsts." Booth said.

"Aren't I too heavy for this?" Brennan asked. Booth was tall, but she wasn't that much shorter than him.

"Bones, not to sound all alpha male, but you do realize I workout right?" There was that classic Booth pride in his voice.

She knew. She knew it too well. She could see the muscles that lined his back flexing under her weight, and the bulge of his bicep felt warm against her leg. His body was something of a sculpture's dream, and Brennan's belief in the importance of bones was rivaled by his physicality. An unreasonable desire to run her hands down his chest was trapped in her fingertips ever since the first time she woke up his bed after an untimely power outage.

Those yearnings were becoming even harder to shake as their concept of personal space downsized to only a couple of inches. The comfortableness within their partnership turned into barely refraining themselves around each other. No hypothesis could predict the outcome of this.

"Ok, ok," Booth said, "now close your eyes."

"Booth, you do realize I can't see anything already. All I see is your back."

"When I put you down," he backtracked, "close your eyes."

With her feet edging closer to the ground and Booth's grip lessening, Brennan shut her eyes for his sake despite it feeling so foolish.

"Are they closed?" Booth asked, his breath hot against the back of her neck.

"Yes."

"I don't trust you." His large hands suddenly covered her eyelids. All over her skin was pricked by the warmth of Booth, his entire body a breath away. She could smell a whiff of her coconut shampoo still intermingling with his brown hair.

With his hands on her head, he slowly turned her and let go. Her bedroom was dark minus the dim glow from the lamp on her side table. He had doubled the size of the fort in her absence with sheets cascading from her bed frame down to the original set up. It was big, cozy, and frankly quite awesome.

"You were right, Booth." Brennan gave in with a bit of awe. "There is an artistry to fort making."

"Come on," he grabbed her hand. "It's even better on the inside."

Booth pulled back the two sheets that acted like an opening, and they crawled inside. Pillows and blankets littered the floor in waves of white linen and navy. Booth flopped onto his back with a triumph sigh as Brennan tucked her feet under herself. They were surrounded by the impressive fort walls that Booth was able to pull up in her bedroom. It was quiet and contained, an escape from the real world.

She desperately hoped their phones wouldn't ring and snap them out of this comfortable daze.

"Now what?" Brennan asked, leaning her chin into the palm of her hand.

"What do you mean 'now what'?" Booth retorted, his eyes beginning to flit shut. "We made a fort, and now we're going to sit in it and enjoy my incredible architectural skills."

"So you first complained there's nothing to do in my apartment, but now that we've made a fort, you don't want to do anything?" She slid onto her side next to him and pulled one of the pillows under her head. "That's a contradiction, Booth."

"I am doing something." He argued. "I'm lying in our fort. I made it extra cushiony just for this reason."

"Are you gonna fall asleep on me?" She poked his arm. "That's no fun, Booth."

He turned, his eyelids opening. It was almost pitch-black in the fort, but she could still make out the poetic constellations in his dark eyes. "I was relaxing, Bones. But if you're so keen on talking, tell me, how did your day go? It was weird not going out into the field today."

"It was quiet. That's a good thing though, isn't it? That there wasn't a murder this week? It means that there is less pain and sadness in the world at this moment." Brennan sounded like she was trying to convince herself more than anyone.

"Yeah, it's good." Booth said with equal hesitation. "But… that means we're not working together, and I hate that. It's boring at the FBI when all I'm doing is paperwork."

"Yeah, my day wasn't particularly exciting either. Sometimes I think back to how just five years ago, I wasn't doing this kind of work. It's hard to imagine not being your partner nowadays."

"Why, Dr. Brennan, did you just admit that you missed me?" His smile was teasing, testing her.

"I guess I did, Booth."

"Then maybe it's fate that the water pipe in my building broke. It's like the world wanted us to be together." He cleared his throat, a sweep of scarlet on his cheek bones. "Wanted us to be together _right now_. Just hanging out."

"Fate isn't real, Booth." She chided, logic running her mouth. "You live in a really old building, and the pipes are probably all rusted. They were bound to break someday."

"Whatever you say, Bones," his dimples deepening with the curve of his lips. "I'm going to call it fate."

Then was it fate that they kept ending up like this? Going to each other's apartments and falling asleep in the same beds and speaking nothing of it the next day? Booth certainly told no one of their situation, Brennan was sure of, considering she was the only person he ever seemed to talk to. As for herself, not even Angela knew of this arrangement.

What goes on between the two of them should just be theirs, she said to him only weeks ago. Brennan didn't feel the need to try to explain these sleepovers, so to speak, to anyone else. It could possibly ruin a thing she dared to look forward to. These moments were unexpected, chalked up to storms and injuries and then the flu. But this one was by choice. Booth could have stayed a hotel or maybe even called up his brother, but he went to Brennan's and she said yes without hesitation.

Brennan wanted to explain her reasoning, but the evidence was lying right beside her. Booth. He looked even bigger now, his shoulders like mountains and his body extending the entire length of the fort. His black tee hiked up a little bit, giving way to a strip of tan skin and the crease of his obliques. Brennan could stay in this minute forever, she thought in a moment of irrationality. An infinite of gentle quietness and gazes, mouths and fingers only inches apart, getting lost in each other's entrancement.

"What are you thinking about, Bones?" He asked softly.

She kept her answer vague. "How nice this is."

"I knew you would like it. After all, I know you better than anyone else."

"No, you don't," she scoffed. "I don't have any secrets. What you know about me, so does everyone else."

"So you're telling me that everyone knows all of your passwords? Or that you secretly enjoy chocolate cream pie?" He moved even closer, voice low. "Or that you are a huge snuggler when you're sleeping?"

Brennan swallowed back the red blush that started to creep up her neck. "Well," she tried to defend, "I know you better than anyone else too."

"I'd be shocked if you didn't," Booth said shamelessly. "It's not like I don't spend almost everyday with you. Come on, Bones, it isn't a bad thing. We already agreed that it was good we didn't have any secrets between each other. Partners are supposed to tell each other things."

"You're right," she said, but something gnawed at the back of her brain. Maybe they didn't have secrets, but rather a kind of mystery that stirred between them during those seconds where they didn't talk, only stared. An unspoken enigma behind rubbed eyes and partially parted lips. A mess of indiscernible emotions and feelings masked by the fear of the unknown. She craved, she desired, she stopped before it began.

But he was everything, and she worried for the day he would finally pull her in.

"Do you ever think about how different our lives would be if a certain moment didn't happen?" Booth pondered.

"What do you mean?" Brennan replied, the panic lodged in her sternum from previous thought dwindling.

"Like what if Pops never had to take in me and Jared because my father wasn't an abusive drunk? Or your parents never abandoned you when you were younger? We probably wouldn't even be here." His words were careful, considering.

"You're probably right."

"It makes me wonder if momentary happiness is worth changing your entire future for. Of course I would have wanted my father to be an _actual_ father to me when I was little, but is that worth me not being an FBI agent and getting to work with you?"

"I don't know, Booth. My parents abandoning me left me rational and unable to connect with people. But on the contrary, that helped me become the best in my field and at least I have Max back in my life. I get to work at the Jeffersonian. I have Hodgins, Cam, Sweets, Angela." Her next words were the heaviest. "I have you."

"So if you could go back in time and keep your parents from not abandoning you, you wouldn't?" Booth pressed.

"Time travel is irrational, Booth." There was a rawness to his eyes that made her backtrack on her reasoning. "But no, I don't think I would. My life has been pretty good in spite of everything has happened to me. I am successful. I have good friends. That is more than some people get in a lifetime. What about you?"

"I wouldn't change a thing." He let out a gentle breath. "I guess everything does happen for a reason."

"Maybe not for a reason, but things do happen because of certain events."

"Then who would have thought that every awful thing that has ever happened to me ultimately lead me to lying in a fort with you?" He smiled, the kind that started from the warm expanse of his chest.

"I guess you could look at it that way," Brennan lightly laughed.

"C'mere," he said, opening his arms. "This calls for a hug."

She rolled her eyes but let herself be enveloped in his embrace. She buried her nose into his black tee, relishing the scent of her soap and his characteristically him smell. He was captivating in his ability to be emotional one moment and then a complete dork the next. It was qualities Brennan used to turn her nose up to, but his friendship morphed her into someone more akin to her twelve-year-old self. And she slowly decided it wasn't that terrible of a thing.

"Booth, are you falling asleep on me again?" She asked as she felt his breathing begin to even out.

"It's comfortable down here," he rasped. "You're nice and warm."

She twisted around in his grip, his hands sliding down to her waist as she tugged on his pillow to claim a corner of it for her head.

"You know," he mumbled, "if we keep this up, people are going to start calling us nap partners."

"Nap partners?"

"Yeah, like Ross and Joey."

"Who's Ross and Joey?"

"They're from Friends."

"You made two new friends named Ross and Joey?"

"No, no. Ross and Joey are characters on a show called Friends. See, this is why you need a TV."

"I don't need a television."

"We can argue about this tomorrow." She felt his nose brush against the back of her head.

"There will be no argument. I'm not getting a television."

Booth pretended he didn't hear her. "Good night, Bones."

Her eyelids began to shut too, and she sighed. "Good night, Booth."

Their next couple days were normal. Getting up, going to crime scenes, having lunch at the diner, and then finishing off a case with a couple of drinks. But what no one knew was that during those nights, Booth and Brennan would doze off in their makeshift fort. They'd wake up with their legs intertwined and wandering hands rested against the soft skin underneath their shirts. When Booth's landlord finally called, saying that the water line had been fixed, there was almost a taste of disappointment in the air.

"Bye, Bones," Booth said after taking down the fort and gathering his duffel bag.

"Bye, Booth," she echoed.

He stood there for a minute, and they slipped into another one of their moments. Wordless gazes and lines undecided as to whether their friendship should be crossed or abided to.

A mystery indeed.

* * *

 **The next chapter will be the last (probably). Thank you to everyone who has read, reviewed, favorited, etc. It means a lot as I continue to grow and develop as a writer.**

 **Review?**


	5. Love

**Putting Booth and Brennan together is the hardest thing to write; I don't know how the writers did it. Other exciting news: David is going to be _Live with Kelly_ on Wednesday and I scored a couple of tickets for myself and my mom. I get to see my man! I hope the experience will be a good one. :)**

* * *

Booth didn't knock this time. He walked straight through the door and found Brennan sitting on her couch, pouring over the files of their most recent case.

"Booth?" She said, eyebrows scrunched in confusion. "What are you doing here?"

"You must think I have some sort of sleeping problem." He crossed the room and sat next to her, his heart thudding against his rib cage with each word.

"In the times I've seen you sleep, you appear to have good sleeping habits. Why? Is something wrong?" She put down the manila folder and faced him, a faint look of concern in the lines around her eyes.

"For the last two nights, I've been restless and unable to sleep well." He paused, chest hurting, tongue turning to lead. "And I think I know why."

"Well, this week's case has been pretty rough on all of this. Your lack of sleep is probably no different from anyone else's. A murder case revolving around a child, especially one so close to Parker's age, is never easy." She said straightforwardly and painfully wrong.

"That's not it."

Her head cocked to one side, confused and waiting for his next words. "Then what is it, Booth?"

"I've started to become so used to falling asleep next to you," another shaky breath was cut from his lungs, "that my bed now feels empty without you, and I can barely sleep at night."

Her hands that were near his leg pulled back. "Oh."

His first admission broke open the dam built by clenched teeth and swallowed words. "I've tried for so long not to feel this way, Bones. Our partnership means more than anything to me. But you can't explain love, Bones, you just can't. What I feel towards you isn't some chemical equation one of your squinterns can write out. I didn't plan for this to happen, but oh god, Bones, I want to lie with you forever. You trust me, don't you? So trust me when I tell you we can do this. We can become more than just partners. I know I'm not the only one who feels this way between the two of us."

Brennan's expression softened, her eyes heavy with blue. Maybe it was fear, maybe it was sadness, maybe it was her always waiting for him to make the first move so she could reciprocate. "Booth…"

"Tell me you don't want this, and I'll go home. I'll adjust back to falling asleep alone. It can't be that hard, can't it?" He tried to the edge off of his previous words, offering an attempt of a smile. "It takes three weeks to break a habit. All I'll need is some coffee."

Her hand gripped onto his knee. "Wait. Don't leave."

Anxiety sat in Booth's throat as he waited for her to open her mouth once again.

"Booth, I _want_ to," Brennan's eyes dropped. "But I don't know if I know _how_ to."

This time he was confused. "What do you mean?"

"Relationships, love, all of it. I don't know if I can be what you want me to be." She still wouldn't look at him.

"Bones," his finger found the bottom of her chin and tilted it up towards him. "I don't want you to change. I love you the way you are."

"Love?"

"Adore, admire, cherish, whatever you want to call it. I was mesmerized by you the first time we met, and I'm still amazed by you now."

"But Booth… how can you be sure you'll always feel this way?" He had never seen her so unsure before. This wasn't Temperance Brennan right now: scientist, author, the best in her field. This was his Bones: human.

"Because you're you, Bones." His lips curved upwards.

"I'm me?"

"You're intelligent and beautiful and unpredictable and everything I didn't know I wanted. I'll never grow tired of you." Booth never realized how long he held back the things he had always wanted to say to her. It came easy now, almost as if it was rehearsed. But it was. Every time he looked at her, spent time with her, fell asleep with her in his arms, the same words sat at the tip of his tongue, begging to be said someday.

Today was that someday.

Her pale cheeks took on a rosy sheen. "You're pretty incredible too, Booth."

"Yeah?"

"And handsome and kind and in touch with your emotions. I've never met another man like you."

He couldn't hold himself back anymore. He leaned forward, his lips brushing against hers. It was hesitant at first, knowing what this meant in the moment and could mean in the future. Mouths barely moved, eyes shut, hands at a stand still. He couldn't comprehend time, only the taste and feeling of her.

But then she took his jaw in her hands and pulled him into her. Crashing, falling, colliding into one. Booth's thoughts dissipated as his biology sent him into overdrive, roaming hands coursing with blood thick of desire. Her mouth left his and began to skirt along his jawline. It feverishly traveled down his neck, her teeth nicking his jugular before her soft lips smoothed over the sensitive skin.

" _Bones_."

"You taste good." She mumbled into the crook of his neck.

Her mouth found his again, tongues and hot breaths mounting with each ravenous press.

"Not here," he sighed in a moment of complete thought.

"What do you mean?" She asked, nimble fingers twisting into his hair.

"Not on the couch." He pulled back. "Your bed. This all started because of our beds."

Booth got up and before Brennan could follow, he scooped her body into his arms and carried her bridal style. She let out a laugh at his unexpected action, and he smiled back, and it was within those few seconds he knew it would all work out between them. They were still best friends, laughing and smiling at each other out of amused surprise. This new intimacy between them would be an added bonus. A simple addition to their story, not an abrupt and tragic ending. She had her lips on his neck one moment ago and then broke out into giggles because of him in the next. This was the version of them he always wanted. Talking, joking, falling love without a single misstep. It wasn't going to feel weird when they woke up the next day, he knew. It was going to feel right.

He continued smiling when he placed her on her bed. She wore a similar expression, a kind of carefree happiness that wasn't to be feared anymore. She reached back up to his shoulders and pulled him down, hunger still residing in the crashing of their mouths. But there was something else. A feeling of meant to be, a knowing that there wouldn't be anything better than this. Tragic backstories and meaningless dates and false feelings of love led them to where they were supposed to be. Now, here, Booth, Brennan.

He rested his weight on his forearms as her hands found his hair again. Booth expected the moment they finally fell into bed together to be hot. It would be clothes immediately shed and mouths not moving fast enough. But this was better. It was slow, learning, discovering.

Perfect.

Brennan's fingers slid down his back and grabbed onto the hem of his shirt, peeling the cotton fabric over his body. Booth helped her out and tore off his shirt. As he began to move downwards again to meet her lips, she slung her arms around his waist and flipped him onto his back. She mounted his hips, running her hands over his chest. He shivered under her warm touch.

"Have I ever told you how remarkable of a physique you have, Booth?" She marveled.

"Maybe once or twice," he said, clasping her wrists and pulling her body parallel to his.

"We're not making a mistake, right?" She asked, their faces only inches apart. "As amazing as this is, what if it interferes with our professional lives?"

Always the rational one.

"Technically, you don't work for the FBI. You work for the Jeffersonian. And there are no rules about interpersonal relationships there." He reasoned, brushing an errant strand of hair out of her face and cupping her cheek.

"But, what if—"

"Then I'll tell the FBI to screw themselves. You're my top priority, Bones."

She kissed him almost as soon as the words left his mouth. It was tantalizing, the type of kiss he could feel spiking his veins like vodka. This time he reached for the hem of her shirt, more indecisive than her with him. But she placed her fingers on his and gave him a solidifying nod and the heat of their now both bare abdomens flush against each other was almost unbearable.

His alpha male desires got the best of him as Booth readjusted himself back on top of her. He ran his mouth down her body, starting at the sharp angle of her jaw and then down to the soft plane of her stomach. She whimpered, her hands gripping onto his arms. He branded his lips across her skin as his hands rested around her waist and tugged her closer.

He made his way back to her mouth, knowing he'd never grow tired of tasting her. He felt a smile creep across her features and couldn't help but grin back.

"What's so funny?" He whispered.

"I've just realized how much I love you, and how easy it is for me to say it." Her smile only grew. "I was so terrified to say it, but now we're here, and it feels so easy and so right. I love you, Booth."

As if he couldn't fall in love with her even more. "I love you too, Bones."

"I love you," she laughed. "I love you so much, and I love saying it."

"Don't stop saying it then."

She pushed him upwards, so they were both sitting. She ran her fingers over his chest.

"I love you here," she said, smoothing her hand over his pectoral muscles. "And I really love you here." She leaned forward and pressed a kiss to the soft skin where his neck met his jaw. "And over here." Her thumb circled his bicep. "And up here." Her lips found his hairline. "You're good all over." She couldn't feel the entirety of his body quick enough. "Everywhere, everything about you. I love it. All your scars and lines and faded bruises. I love it all."

He took her face into his palms and kissed her softly. He didn't know what to say and hoped this would suffice. She was beautiful and intelligent and real, and he wished he could take her in all that once. Her touch, her scent, her. She was his everything, and now, in this intimate moment of two friends becoming what they were meant to be, he was everything to her too.

He rolled back on top of her, and her hands fell further down his abdomen. Her feather light touch against the sensitive skin near his waistline made him shudder. Her fingers inched closer to his belt, and he jerked himself upwards, meeting her eyes.

"Are you sure?" He asked seriously. This would be it. This would be the final line to be crossed and never abided to ever again.

"I've never felt more sure about anything before."

His belt slid off easily.

* * *

When Brennan woke up the next morning, he wasn't there. The sheets were warm against her bare skin, her bones still humming from last night. She peeled herself out of bed, serenity slowing her movements, and slipped on a pair of pajama bottoms and Booth's FBI shirt that she found on the floor.

She found Booth standing her kitchen wearing only his black boxer briefs. His back was facing towards her as he masterfully flipped a pancake and tossed it onto a nearby plate. It was certainly a view she could get used to.

She traipsed over to her partner (Mate? Boyfriend? They could figure that out later.) and slipped her hands around his waist, rubbing circles into the skin she now knew so well. Pressing a kiss to his shoulder, she mumbled out a lazy "Good morning".

"Good morning yourself," Booth said back with a smile. "I hope you like pancakes."

"Pancakes sound good." She untangled herself from him and pulled out a couple mugs for coffee.

They fell into a comfortable silence, only the sizzle of pancake batter hitting the hot skillet and the murmur of burbling coffee filling the air. People called it domestic bliss, and bliss it was. Brennan had been in relationships before, but they were built upon sex and flings. Not this. Not having a quiet morning that was equally as nice as a titillating last night. A relationship wasn't only the heat between two bare bodies, Brennan decided. It was looking forward to the simple moments between two people who craved each other's words as much as each other's lips.

Booth set out plates and cutlery for the two of them, dishing out a couple pancakes for each. Brennan took a seat next to him and dug in. It felt like any other day between them: coffee and pancakes whether it would be at the diner or at their apartments. But it was also a new day. The beginning of Booth and Brennan, 'and' carrying an entirely new meaning.

Brennan looked over at Booth as she took a sip and smiled against the edge of her mug.

"What are you so happy about?" He teased.

"Nothing in particular," she mused uncharacteristically. She was the usually certain one between the two of them, but this moment didn't have a discernible joy. It was a culmination of everything. "This. All of it. It's nice."

"Maybe I need to make pancakes more often," he said, laughing.

"You know what I mean."

"I do, and I feel it too." He replied and as soon as she put down her mug, his lips were on hers, tasting of maple syrup and coffee. This kiss was soft, not leading to something but defining the start of their new normal. Chaste kisses in between conversation. The rush of serotonin that followed the release of his lips already had her addicted to him. One night, and she was his.

"Where do we go from here?" She aimlessly pushed a bite of pancake around her plate. "Are we supposed to tell people? Or should we keep it a secret?"

"That's a problem for later." Booth said. "All I want to do is enjoy breakfast with my favorite person."

Brennan wouldn't let it drop just yet. "Can I at least tell Angela?"

Booth nodded his head with a grin. "I think you might give her a heart attack, but if that's what would make you happy, then of course."

"A heart attack?" She frowned. "Angela's heart is perfectly healthy as far as I know."

"It's called an exaggeration, Bones. All I meant is that I think she'll be very excited for us."

Brennan's lips ticked upwards. "You think so?"

"I know you're the rational one, but didn't you ever notice the amount of people who wanted us to be a couple?" Booth let out a breath of laughter. "Even strangers would ask if we were together."

"Oh. Yes. I did. I guess I never paid much attention to it because I never thought it would happen."

"And now that it has?" He moved closer, his hand falling to her thigh and lips within kissing distance.

Brennan smiled even wider. "I can't remember the last time I was this content."

His kisses always started out so tenderly. Soft pink flesh grazing and exploring with each brush following in a sense of building desperation. His hands skated up to her waist as her fingers moved in a similar manner, learning the muscular plane of his midsection. Their seats clunked together with another press of their lips.

"As nice this is," she mumbled against his mouth, "our breakfast is going to get cold."

"It can be reheated later," he replied, looping his fingers under the waistband of her pants and drawing her closer. "C'mere."

He patted his right hand against his leg. Brennan slid into his lap, draping her legs across his thighs and twisting her head to meet his lips. She clasped her arms around his neck and felt his hands sweep across her back.

"I could get used to this." Booth sighed.

"It only takes a month to form a habit." She stated matter-of-factly.

"Guess that means we'll have to stay over each other's apartments everyday for a month." Booth paused and pulled himself back, clearing his throat. "I mean if you want that, of course."

"Booth," she looked him right in the eyes. They were always so much more intricate up close. "I'm still not sure how to do this, but I'm all in. I want to learn how to be in a normal, monogamous relationship with you and nobody else."

"I'm all in too, Bones."

It was funny how they spent five years without kissing (minus the forgotten mistletoe incident), and now Brennan never wanted to stop. Of course, there were moments before this where they were inexplicably close. Guys hugs and held hands and personal space lost. She chalked it up to being partners, being close friends. It was meaningless until this morning. Brennan realized the tug she felt in her stomach as Booth kissed her even harder had always been there. Sometimes faint, sometimes strong, but always there.

A gut feeling, Booth would call it.

"Wait," Brennan drew herself back, "I know Christmas isn't for another couple weeks, but I think it's fitting to give you your gift now."

"Bones," Booth's eyes opened wide in shock. "You got me a gift? You don't even believe in all that stuff."

"I know I don't, but you do."

"But I didn't get you a gift yet."

"And I don't expect one because it still would be more wise if you gave it to me in March. However, you're my—"

Booth grinned. "Boyfriend?"

Brennan wrinkled her nose. "I hate that word. It doesn't accurately convey our relationship."

He ignored her, a cocky smirk appearing on his face. "Can I introduce you as my girlfriend to other people?"

"Partner sounds better."

"'Hi everyone, this is my girlfriend Dr. Temperance Brennan'. Has a nice ring to it, don't you think?" He really did live to tease her.

"Fine, _boyfriend._ It doesn't sound like you even want your gift anymore." Brennan was equally as good at teasing him back.

"Oh, no, I do." He lit up like a child on Christmas morning and gently pushed her off of his lap. "At least me seeing my gift early allows me to get an even better gift for you."

Brennan walked over to her bedroom and called out over her shoulder. "I don't think that will be possible, Booth."

"Bones, there is no way you're a better gift giver than me." He scoffed.

"This might change your mind." She reappeared from her room with a small wrapped up box. She sat back down in her chair and handed the box to Booth.

He carefully peeled off the wrapping paper and then pulled off the lid. Inside the box laid a simple metal key.

"What is it?" Booth asked, feeling the cool silver between his fingers.

"A key to my apartment. You come over here so often, it only seems fitting for you to have a key instead of having to knock every time." Brennan said.

He broke out into one of his infamous charm smiles, the one that started at his lips and then quickly dominated the rest of his features. The deepening of his dimples, the crinkles around his eyes, the scrunch of his nose. He was still smiling when he pulled her into a hug, and he was still smiling when he kissed her.

"Thank you, Bones." He wouldn't stop beaming. "I love it."

"So, you think you can top that?" Brennan edged him on.

"You know I'll think of something good. Does that mean you're staying home for Christmas this year?"

She nodded. "Of course. Why would I leave now that I have you?"

Somehow, he smiled even harder. "That's the best answer I've ever heard."

"I love you, Booth." She really wouldn't grow tired of saying that.

"I love you more."

"Oh really? You're starting with that already?" Brennan thought back to when she would play that game with her mother and father. She always won.

"It's not starting something if it's true." He was infuriating. And charming and confident and she already knew she wouldn't love another man more.

"There's no evidence that it is." She challenged.

Booth put down the key and picked Brennan up in his arms for the second time within the past two days. His dark eyes glinted something fierce, his breath hot against her skin. They stumbled back into her bedroom and collapsed onto her bed together.

He brought his mouth close to her ear. "You better hope our phones don't ring."

Brennan pulled him for a searing kiss and rolled on top of him. But before the kiss became anything more, she drew herself back and admired the man she fell for. Her pointer finger began to trace a line down the middle of Booth's chest as Booth watched her intently. There was a strength about him that went beyond his exterior. He carried it within the bite of his protective words and the press of his holstered gun. She always envied him for it: she became porous with emotion while he turned it into strength.

But she also loved how weak she could make him even before they solidified their relationship that previous night. She wrote words against his pectorals and felt goosebumps form under the brush of her fingertip. His muscles twitched and he blinked under her gaze. He beckoned her command in this moment of only the two of them, lying in her bed together as she memorized the bones that lived under the plane of his skin. He shivered.

"Do you want me to stop?" She asked innocently.

"Never." He whispered back. He pulled her down to meet his lips, his next words the sweetest tasting:

"I want this to last forever."

* * *

 **I feel like this needs an epilogue/one more chapter hmm...**


	6. Epilogue

**It took me forever to write this chapter. Sorry! I have had a bit of writer's block because my mind has been consumed by another thought: meeting David. If you follow me on Twitter, you'll know that I met David back on February 27th. I got to ask him a question about directing and he got really excited about the question and even joked about getting a cup of coffee with me! He is a super nice person, and I somehow love him even more now.**

 **Hope you enjoy this epilogue. It has a different vibe from the prior chapters, but hopefully it's still a good one!**

* * *

Three months into their relationship, they decided to move in together. It was pointless for them to keep their own respective apartments. They barely spent any nights apart anymore with the typical question being whose bed they should fall asleep in.

Of course, this topic of conversation did not come up without a fit of bickering ("Sweets, don't listen to Booth. We aren't bickering. We're merely having a healthy debate between two adults." "A debate is bickering, Bones.")

Brennan was adamant about Booth moving into her apartment. It was practical and spacious and not on the verge of being flooded again by a set of rusted pipes. Booth retorted back saying she should move into his place. Water pipes aside, it had great historical charm, and he didn't want to part with his bed just yet.

Their argument made its way into work. Sweets tried to have them work in out civilly while Angela started to put together a pool of bets as to who would crack first ($500 that Booth would give in and move into Brennan's versus only $20 that Brennan would move into Booth's place). Everyone was already thrilled by the fact that their favorite FBI agent and forensic anthropologist finally bit the bullet and became the couple people already thought of them to be. It would be only criminal, Angela had said, to not have a little bit fun when it came to their relationship.

A compromise between two of the most stubborn people would ultimately have to be made.

"Hey," Booth said, knocking on Brennan's office door.

"Hey, Booth," Brennan filed away the last bit of paperwork into her bag. "Are we going back to your place tonight?"

"About that…" he started.

She cut him off. "Did you finally come to your senses and decide to move into my place?"

"No." Booth moved closer to her. "I was actually thinking about a third option."

"A third option?"

"How about we get our own place? Not my apartment or your apartment, but our home. Call it a gut feeling, but I don't see us ever breaking up. It would only make sense to get a place together." He watched her intently, waiting for her eyes flare grey with nervousness.

But they didn't. "Are you serious, Booth?" It wasn't criticizing; it was a welcomed surprise, her voice soft. "Our own house?"

"As serious as a heart attack, Bones. I know I don't have much money to contribute to the down payment, but I think we should do it. That is unless you want to keep having 'a healthy debate between two adults' about which apartment to live in." He laughed.

"No, Booth," she paused, "it sounds perfect. I would enjoy purchasing a home with you."

She broke out into a wide smile, and Booth couldn't help but kiss her right in the middle of her office. She dropped her bag and wrapped her arms around his neck.

"We really shouldn't be doing this," she mumbled against his mouth. "Everyone can see us."

"Who cares." He kissed her harder. "We can just remind everyone that they'll never be as lucky as us."

"You sound pretty sure about that, Booth." She giggled.

"I've got all the evidence." His arms tightened around her back.

"Really?" She mused.

"Let's see. We are impossibly in love, are best friends, have a great working relationship, and also have incredible sex. Who wouldn't be jealous?"

"Hmm," she hummed. "I think your logic is correct."

Booth pulled himself back briefly. "I really do love you, Bones. We're going to find the perfect home."

"Our home." She said and kissed him again.

That night, they delved into their house hunt. Brennan was fixated on buying a mansion with the new advancement on her next book while Booth took one look at his bank account and soured. She continuously told him that it would be fine, she could take care of a majority of the payments, but his alpha male tendencies wouldn't allow it. It would be fifty-fifty split down the line.

A month later, they purchased a modest home on the outskirts of the city. Three bedrooms and two bathrooms with the unspoken possibility that their family may grow someday. The house was in moderate disarray, lending itself to multiple vacation days of painting walls and refinishing floors.

Brennan threw on a pair of ragged sweats and one of Booth's old t-shirts while Booth settled for only a pair of basketball shirts as they painted the last wall of their new bedroom. They eventually decided to go for a muted grey-blue ("Maybe we could have an accent wall in the color of the Flyers―" "No, Booth.") after Brennan read multiple studies that certain colors have certain effects on one's sleeping pattern. Blue was supposedly calming.

"What color do you want to do the other rooms?" Booth mused as he dipped his paintbrush into the paint can before applying the soft blue sheen to the wall.

"Probably a beige. All the interior designers on HGTV say it looks best." Brennan said.

"You trust those people?" He laughed.

"Considering they have their own shows and their customers look happy, then yes I do. Why? What color do you want?"

"No, I think you're right. Beige would be easiest." _To paint over when we have a nursery_ , Booth added in his head. After last year's revelation of Brennan wanting to have a baby and even picking Booth to be her sperm donor, he kept the idea of having kids with her wedged at the back of his brain. Now that they were living together, the concept went from possible to plausible, and Booth could only picture babies with his brown hair and her blue eyes. It was a distant thought for the future, but one he loved to entertain nonetheless.

Brennan moved to paint right under where Booth was and knocked into his arm, causing him to accidentally flick his brush and spray droplets onto her head.

" _Booth_. You should be more careful." She chided as she wiped away a dribble that landed on her forehead.

"You're the one who bumped into me." He retorted.

She reached over and painted a stripe over his right pectoral. "There. Now we're even."

"Even?! I accidentally got five drops onto your head. You did that purposely."

"It's only a blue stripe."

Booth dipped his finger into the can of paint and smeared a bit of blue across her cheek. She let out a noise of surprise, and he smirked right back. Her surprise quickly resolved into competitiveness, her paintbrush finding his chest again and leaving more than just a stripe. An all out war broke out between the couple as they laughed through ruined clothes and blue tinted skin.

"We're wasting all of this paint." She flicked a drop of paint away before it got onto Booth's lips.

"Who cares?" He was beaming. "This is fun."

Booth stripped Brennan of her shirt and left more streaks against her pale skin. His lips landed onto hers, forgetting about their unfinished wall and unpainted rooms.

"We should probably get cleaned up," she said, her hands resting on his abdomen.

"First one to the shower wins?" His eyebrows arched.

She pushed him back and raced downstairs to their finished bathroom (the en suite was still under wraps). He trailed behind, already knowing she had won. But he didn't mind.

Years ago, if anyone told him he was going to having a paint war with his partner turned best friend turned girlfriend, he would have laughed.

Now, he was chasing after his paint streaked Brennan who was still laughing when they got under the spray of the hot water, grinning at his defeat.

But as he pressed his mouth against her smile while she rubbed the paint off his chest, he knew he was the real winner.

* * *

A year into their relationship, he proposed.

He didn't have it planned for a particular moment. It didn't suddenly hit him that he should propose. He always had a feeling he someday would. It only happened sooner than he anticipated.

Of course, when he first thought about the day he would ask her to marry him, he imagined it would be some elaborate display. It would be at her favorite restaurant or on the jumbotron at a Flyers game or in the middle of Times Square. It was going to over the topic romantic as Booth dropped to one knee and Brennan clasped her hands over her mouth in joyous surprise.

He ended up proposing in their kitchen.

It was a Saturday morning in December. Brennan stood at the stove top, basking in the glow of the pale sun as she made a batch of waffles. Booth sat at the kitchen counter and watched Brennan go through the motions of a lazy morning. It wasn't often they got moments like this. In a world of murder and crime, days off on Saturdays were not a constant.

"I can feel you staring at me." Brennan said, her back still turned to him.

"I'm not staring." Booth replied. "I'm admiring."

"Admiring me making waffles? I'm still in my pajamas, my hair's a mess. I haven't even gotten ready for the day yet."

"You still look perfect to me," he said. And she did. He longed for the days where he would wake up and see her before she put on the persona of Dr. Temperance Brennan: serious, brilliant, cunning. And now that he had them, he would never grow tired of it. Brennan in the morning was softer, gentler. She wore a smile more often, and his arms begged to be wrapped around her curved frame.

"We've been together for a year now, Booth." He could tell she was beginning to blush. "You don't need to compliment me all the time."

"I know I don't. But I will." He said.

She turned to face him with the shake of her head and a smile. He only smiled back, knowing she secretly enjoyed the way he spoke so highly of her. He didn't do it to boost her confidence. She already was proud of the woman she was, and it only made him love her more. But she was self-assured in a numerical way. IQ levels and number of doctorates and the golden ratio that supposedly defined if a person was attractive or not. He lived to call her gorgeous or mention how kind she was or speak of her warmth when it was just the two of them. It didn't catch her off guard as much anymore, but she would still get bashful, and Booth only wanted to praise her more.

She was the best person he knew. Whether it was them working or in a much more personal setting, she was the best. It was her flaws that made her perfect in his eyes because he was flawed too, and yet, their flaws that broke them was what rebuilt them into each other's other half.

He cut into his first waffle as she sat next to him. They fell into a quiet rhythm of eating, and his eyes wandered back towards watching her. Her brown hair tumbled against her robe covered shoulders like crashing waves. She wasn't wearing any makeup yet. He didn't even care. With, without, simultaneously beautiful. Any way she was, she reminded him of art in a museum, and he was the spectator who didn't want to see any other painting.

"Now you're just getting creepy," Brennan stated before reaching for her mug of coffee.

"Sorry." Booth said with a laugh.

She looked straight at him, locking her eyes with his. "Do you want me to watch you eat and call you handsome too?"

"I thought you said my ego was already too inflated." He puffed up his chest.

She rolled her eyes. "You're lucky I love you."

He set down his fork and rested his head onto his palm, gazing at the woman he was equally as lucky to love. His partner, his friend, his girlfriend, his―

His wife. He still couldn't call her that. And it was right then, he knew he wanted to.

He had entire speech prepared for the day he proposed. But those words were replaced by the simplest ones: "We should get married."

Brennan choked on her coffee, placing down her mug and wiping errant drops from her lips. "What?"

"Married. I know you've been opposed to marriage for some time, Bones, but this is us. Me and you. Everything about us shouldn't make sense, and yet it does. Us becoming husband and wife isn't normal, but it feels right, Bones. We've been together for a year now, and it's been the best year of my life. It truly has. Nothing compares to waking up next to you every single day." He shook his head with a laugh. "You know, I always planned on doing this somewhere really romantic and not our kitchen. But it's not the place that matters, is it? It's the moment. I love you, Bones, and that's an always."

He pushed back his chair and got down onto one knee. "I don't even have a ring, but I guess we never do anything traditional, right? That's okay. I would never be able to find a ring good enough for you, anyways. So, Bones," he took her hands into his, "will you marry me?"

It was quiet for a second, and Booth almost wondered if he had done the wrong thing. He wasn't afraid that Brennan would leave him, but marriage was something they never talked about. Their relationship was fine how it was, and she used to always chastise those who said 'I do'. But those kinds of snide remarks had quieted within the recent years, and Booth took that as a sign of her beliefs changing. This moment would only prove his suspicions as true or false.

A smile crept across Brennan's face. "Yes."

He smiled so hard, it almost hurt. "Are you serious?"

"You're so happy about the idea of getting married. That makes me happy too. So, yes, of course I want to marry you, Booth." Her eyes were bright and wide with a joy he could pinpoint out in their different shades of blue.

He jumped up from his kneeling position and pulled her out of her chair and right into his arms, pressing a kiss to her lips in the midst of their beams. This was a memory he wouldn't ever grow tired of retelling. How he asked her to marry him during one early morning in December and didn't even have a ring, but it didn't matter because she said yes. He couldn't hold her tight enough, couldn't convey enough as to how happy he was. He wasn't dreaming; this was happening. They were soon going to be saying their vows and wearing matching rings. He was going to call her his wife. And she was going to call him her husband. They were going to be partners in crime and in life.

It was one of those moments he wished to call an infinity because this was the feeling he would never want to let go of. Joy, love, her.

"We're getting married." He said, the corners of lips still tugging upwards.

"Yes, we are." She laughed.

"You're going to be my wife." He could barely formulate his sentences.

"Yes, I am." She kissed him again.

"How did this happen?" He asked. "Don't get me wrong, I'm so happy. But what made you change your mind about marriage?"

"You. I honestly didn't think about getting married until you asked just now, but you're right. It does feel right. Anthropology taught me that marriage was the for the sake of civilization and the continuation of society. I never considered the emotional factor of it until we became us. I love you, and I know I will never love any man more than you, so it only makes sense for you to be my husband." She said earnestly, wrapping her arms tightly around his back.

"So you don't think this is irrational?" He tilted his head.

"Maybe it is, but I don't want to be rational with you." Her arms released his midsection and her hands found his jaw instead, tugging him down to meet her lips with a searing kiss. It continued to build, hands wandering and hips bumping. Brennan reached to the hem of his shirt and pulled the cotton tee off of his body.

"I should have proposed to you earlier if this is how you were going to respond." He laughed as she kissed his jaw.

"How can you be so sure I would have said yes back then?" She murmured into his skin.

"Because I know you love me just as much as I love you. And that's a lot."

Her mouth found his again, the hot press of her lips and tongue almost rending his thoughts incoherent. He set his hands onto her hips and began to back her towards the direction of their bedroom. She pulled herself back, understanding what he meant and grabbed ahold of his hand.

They stumbled up the stairs and onto their bed, fingers reaching for waistbands and lips relearning planes of skin.

He let out a laugh of unconstrained happiness. "Who says the honeymoon phase has to wait until after the wedding?"

* * *

Two and half years into their relationship, they got married.

It was a beautiful ceremony, taking place right at the gardens where Brennan had chased Booth years prior, telling him that she could be a duck. It was fitting for it to take place there: the beginnings of their partnership and now their continuation as a married couple. There was not a dry eye in the place after Brennan was done reading her vows that she had unknowingly written years ago after getting buried alive. When they finally said their I dos and kissed for the first time as husband and wife, Booth knew that every terrible thing that had ever happened him didn't matter anymore.

The degenerate gambler had won the heart of the forensic anthropologist who once vowed that she would never fall in love. The son of an abusive father who used to only know the pain of striking blows now held onto the soft hands of the daughter of two runaways.

It was a tail of twisted fates that lead them to dancing together in front of their closest friends and families for their first time as a married couple. She looked so beautiful in her white dress, and the smile she wore was even better. He had to hold himself back from kissing her every moment he could, instead settling for a constant hand rested at her waist.

With their honeymoon trip to Argentina not for a couple more days, they made their way back home. The effects of champagne and sweet cake dripped into their words as they laughed and kissed and wandered into their bedroom.

"We're married," Booth smiled as he climbed into bed next to Brennan. His wife. Brennan was his wife.

"Yes, we are," she grinned back at him and moved closer, their faces only inches apart.

"I can't stop smiling." He reached over for her hand and smoothed his thumb over the cool gold of her wedding band.

"I hope you don't. I love your smile." She leaned forward and brushed her lips over his upturned ones.

He shifted onto his back and pulled her into his embrace, her head resting on his chest. He pressed a kiss to the top of her head. "How did I get so lucky?"

"Luck doesn't exist, Booth." She reminded him like always. "But if it did, I think I would be the lucky one."

"Why?"

"Because I sworn off relationships for so long, and yet you still decided to love me."

"I didn't decide to love you, Bones. The heart wants what it wants, and mine fell for you."

"I think you mean your brain. The heart merely pumps blood."

"Nuh-uh, you're not rationalizing your way out of this one. The fact is that I love you. The how and why don't matter."

"Okay, fine." Brennan said, begrudgingly accepting Booth's reasoning. "But as I was saying, I would be the lucky one. You could have moved on once you saw what I was really like. You're attractive and kind and any woman would want you, and still you stuck with me. It was illogical of you, but I am thankful you rely on your gut because I guess your gut lead you to me."

"Bones, I always knew we would end up here. It didn't matter how long I would have to wait. I knew that you would someday see me in the same way I saw you. I could never move on from what was going to be my future. No one could make me as happy as you do. I married my best friend. How many people are able to tell a story like that?" He smiled and held her tighter.

"That's a lot of confidence to have in something that was never definite, Booth." Brennan picked her head up and rested her chin on his chest, looking him in the eyes.

"Oh, it was definite, Bones."

"Love isn't definite."

"It is with us."

And she didn't argue it. Booth waited for Brennan to retaliate. He wasn't being rational of course. He didn't always know that Brennan would one day say she loved him back. But he held onto that warm sense of hope for years because they had been through so much. Pain and loss and yet they still retained the joy of two people who cared deeply about each other. To him, that was love in its most undefinable way. It was finding happiness and comfort in someone when the world seemingly turned to hell. So maybe he wasn't sure how long it would take, but he wouldn't backtrack on his words. They were supposed to end up here. Together, in love.

"It took me a long time to accept my love for you," she admitted.

"That's okay, Bones. I mean, I don't blame you with your parents and your brother and―"

"But you had been through so much too. You had an abusive father. You proposed to Rebecca and she rejected you. But you never stopped believing in love. How?" Her blue eyes watched him with curiosity.

"Because it's the best feeling, Bones. If I gave up on love, I wouldn't be here with you right now. I wouldn't get to wake up with you every morning or curl up with you when we watch movies or stay up with you late at night talking about whatever because we don't want to go to sleep just yet. It's everything, Bones." He smiled, thinking about the small moments shared between them.

"I think you're right." She said.

"Really?"

"When it comes to you, love is everything. I thought I would never experience it, but you proved me wrong." She inched upwards and wrapped her arms around his neck, burying her nose into the hollow of his throat. "You are everything."

"Who knew I would turn you into such a romantic, Bones?" He laughed, enveloping her body with his arms.

"I'm pretty sure you're still romantic one." She murmured back.

"Yeah, I am. But you've got your way with words."

"I am a best-selling novelist, Booth. I have to be."

"Wow," Booth said with a beam. "I'm married to a best-selling author."

She giggled at his amazement. "And I'm married to one of the best rangers that army has ever seen."

"We are quite the power couple." He mused. "Beyoncé and Jay-Z have some competition now."

"Who?"

Booth shook his head with a snicker. Her lack of pop culture knowledge would never not be amusing. "It doesn't matter."

It was quiet for a minute, the newly married couple enjoying the first pages of their next chapter in life. Brennan broke the silence with a content sigh. "Thank you, Booth."

"For what?" He questioned.

"For giving me a life that is different from what I expected and turned out to be everything I needed."

"I can thank you for the same thing, Bones." He could feel her smile against his skin.

"So," she pulled her head back from the space between his neck and shoulder blade, "what do you want to do on our first night as husband and wife?"

He rolled her onto her back and straddled his body over hers. "I think you know."

She placed her right hand onto the back of his head and tugged his mouth down to meet hers. "I love you, husband."

He smiled against her lips. "I love you too, wife."

"I don't think I'll ever grow tired of hearing that." She mumbled under his kiss.

"Then I'll never stop saying it."

After all, she was the reason the word 'always' existed.

* * *

Three and half years into their relationship, they had a baby girl.

Christine Angela Booth.

Booth and Brennan might have been biased, but she was perfect. Everything about her. Her eyes, her nose, her fingers, her toes. She was perfect and adorable and all theirs.

They didn't necessarily plan on having a baby at the moment, but it was a welcomed surprise nonetheless. And now that she was here in the world, they couldn't imagine their lives without her.

Of course, the first few nights were rough and took some time to get used to. They were consumed by crying and restless sleeps and giant cups of coffee in the morning. Still, they wouldn't trade it for the world and soon fell into the rhythm of being parents.

Booth came home and found Brennan sitting in bed with Christine in her arms. He leaned over and gave Brennan a kiss before pressing his lips to Christine's forehead. This was his new normal, and he loved it. Coming home to his two favorite girls. It was an irreplaceable feeling.

"How was your day?" Brennan asked per usual as Booth undid his tie.

His answer was always the same: "Fine, but I missed you."

"I'll be back in two weeks," she replied.

"Don't think I'm pressuring you. You can take as long of a maternity leave as you want. It's just weird going into the field without you." Booth said, slipping into a pair of sweats and a shirt.

"I know what you mean, Booth. It's strange not going to the lab everyday." Brennan looked down at her asleep daughter. "But it's worth it."

"She's so beautiful." Booth murmured as he sat down onto his side of the bed.

"Well, look at who her parents are." Brennan said proudly.

He laughed. "Especially her mom."

"Don't discredit yourself too much, Booth. She has your prominent mental protuberance after all."

"Ah, yes. How could I forget about that?"

"I should probably put her in her crib," Brennan said after a moment.

"No, not yet. I've missed her." Booth took her from Brennan's arms and into his. Christine lightly stirred, gripping onto her father's nearby thumb. "Did you miss me too, baby girl?"

"I think she did," Brennan whispered and curled closer to her husband and daughter.

"I thought you said babies don't have that kind of 'emotional capacity' at such a young age." Booth teased.

"This moment can be an exception." She ran her thumb over Christine's fingers.

He let out a yawn, feeling the wear and tear of his day finally settling into his sore muscles. His most recent case had him on the constant run, and it was getting to him since all he really wanted to be doing was sitting at home with his family.

His family. He had a family with Brennan. It still never failed to take him aback.

"You should sleep." Brennan said, motioning to take Christine from his arms. "I know this particular case has been exhausting."

Booth narrowed his eyes at her. He hadn't gone into any specifics about the case since he'd much rather discuss their daughter with her. "How did you know th―did you ask Sweets to keep tabs on me while you're at home?"

"Booth, it's perfectly normal for a wife to be concerned about her husband." She said flatly.

"I can take care of myself, thank you very much. You don't need Sweets to be following me like a lost puppy and then ducking into the bathroom to text you updates." Booth argued.

Brennan looked at him in the eyes with a similar intensity. She never backed down from a fight. "You know I'm not going to stop asking him, right?"

Booth let out a sigh. "I expect nothing less from you."

She shot him a wide smile, the one of a very ungracious winner. "Now come on," she refocused her attention on the baby steadfast asleep in her father's arms, "let's get this one to bed so we can sleep too."

As if she knew her parents wanted to sleep, a small whimper escaped Christine's mouth before turning into a wail. Booth began rocking his arms, trying to sooth the crying infant with his soft voice, but it was to no avail.

"I just changed her twenty minutes ago," Brennan sighed. "I think she's hungry." Booth moved to pass over Christine, but Brennan held up her arms. "Give her a bottle. I don't know about you, but I really am tired."

"It's no problem," Booth said, pressing a kiss to Brennan's forehead. He handed over Christine, who continued to whimper and cry, to Brennan and quickly prepared a bottle.

Brennan was worried about this the most. While pregnant, she knew what to expect. It was all biology and anatomy when it came to being pregnant and then delivering a newborn. But then came the actual care. The interactions and knowing what each infant sound meant and everything in between. Of course, Booth didn't share a similar worry due to being a father already. He was more excited about showing his wife the ins and outs of being a parent. Not to his surprise, however, Brennan was a natural. She fell into the swing of things within a day or so ("I hope Christine is as quick of a learner as you are, Bones." "There's a definite possibility of that, Booth.") with her default setting of rationality switching to attentiveness.

Booth returned, bottle in hand, to find Brennan lying on her side with Christine wiggling on her back in the middle of their bed. He curled up next to them and held out the bottle for Christine.

"Hey, hey," he cooed. "It's alright. You're alright."

Christine's cries subsided into baby gurgles as she latched onto the bottle and ate. Brennan looked over at Booth with a soft smile.

"She's already a daddy's girl." Brennan said.

"Really?" He asked. "I thought she was a mommy's girl."

"Maybe this is the one area where we can tie, where there are no winners."

"I think you're right."

Brennan reached out to Booth's free hand and squeezed it. Her eyes began to flutter shut, but the smile on her face remained. He wished he had a camera to capture this moment. A moment of pure happiness. He had seen Brennan through it all. Being parentless, her father running off again, him arresting her father, a boyfriend leaving her for a boat, dates calling it off right before dinner. But that was the pain. He also saw her through the good times too. Learning how to ice skate, dining and dashing (as far as she knew), eating Chinese food, singing karaoke, sitting by the river of the town she was going to save.

But the chapters of their story were by far his favorite. Crashing at each other's places, crossing the imaginary line and kissing each other, listening to her say I do, watching her cradle their daughter in her arms. Their novel of seeming impossibilities became their joyful reality. And he could never quite articulate how much he loved it.

"I love you," Brennan whispered, breaking his thoughts.

"Who, me? Or Christine?" He smirked.

"Both." She mumbled back. "All of it. I love all of it."

Before he could reply, Christine made a gurgle that sounded of happy agreement.

Booth smiled. "I think Christine loves all of it too."

* * *

Four years into their relationship, it was any other day.

Booth and Brennan arrived home after a round of celebratory drinks for solving their most recent case. Booth tossed his keys on a nearby table while Brennan shed off her coat. They met each other again in their kitchen where Booth grabbed onto Brennan's hand and pulled her into a passionate kiss.

"Wow, what was that for?" Brennan asked somewhat breathlessly.

"Just this case. I mean, the man killed his wife because he thought she was cheating when really she was planning a huge surprise for him." Booth said. "If they had just trusted each other, we wouldn't have needed to solve this case."

"Why does that bother you so much, Booth?" She held onto one of his hands. "We've dealt with cases like this before."

"I don't think it's bothering me… I think it's most of me realizing how great of a relationship we have. I mean, I trust no one more than you. I never doubt you about anything. I know you'll always do the right thing." He sighed, softly smiling at her. "And you trust me too."

"Of course I do, Booth." She intertwined her fingers with his. "You're my partner in every aspect from my life."

"It's funny to think that at one point we were too afraid to act upon our feelings for each other because we never thought this would work out." Booth said with a slight laugh.

"And now we have a relationship that's so strong, it makes us feel bad to see how terrible other people's are in comparison."

"Oh, I don't know if I feel bad." He grinned wickedly. "Do you?"

"No, not really." Brennan shared a similar smile back. "It's their loss really."

Booth moved closer towards Brennan, pressing her up against their kitchen island as he fit his mouth to hers. Her hands slide up his arms but quickly stopped at his chest, pushing him back.

"Isn't Max going to be home with Christine soon?" She asked, her eyes darting towards their front door.

"Nope. I called him a couple of hours ago and told him to take Christine for the night. He's gonna spend a day with her tomorrow and bring her back in the evening." Booth replied.

"So we're alone?" Her eyebrows arched upwards.

"Completely alone."

Brennan gave him a knowing smirk and wrapped his tie around one of her hands, pulling him in the direction of their bedroom.

"Looks like we're going to have a late night."

* * *

 **Yesterday was my birthday (March 13th), so in Sweets' fashion, instead of getting gifts, I give this last chapter as a gift to anyone who read my fic. Thank you for all of the follows, reviews, and favorites. This was a fun story to write!**


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